Telecom secretary Aruna Sundararajan has said that the government and industry should work in collaboration with an aim to double India’s telecom infrastructure by 2020.
Fiberisation was a national imperative and the government, industry and chambers of commerce needed to work in coalition to achieve the objective of doubling the telecom footprint in the country by 2020, Sundararajan said at an industry event.
Last week, Sundararajan had said that in two to three years, the country will see more new initiatives with an investment of Rs 130,000 crore that would go towards massive expansion and upgradation. India is lagging in fibre roll outs when compared to countries like China and the US and fibre-based networks are considered essential to deliver seamless data connectivity.
The telecom department is aggressively monitoring the roll out of the ambitious BharatNet initiative that aims to provide Internet connectivity to 2.5 lakh gram panchayats or village blocks by March 2019. Backed by robust fibre infrastructure, the government expects to start broadband services with 1 Gbps speed across 1 lakh gram panchayats by the end of this year under the project.
The mega national programme is also expected to give a fillip to reaching out e-commerce services, including e-governance, e-education and entertainment services to far-flung areas of the country. BharatNet, previously called National Optice Fibre Network (NOFN), was originally conceived by the UPA-II government in 2011, but has been marred by delayed implementation.
