Rakesh Garg takes charge as the new telecom secretary

NEW DELHI: Rakesh Garg, who took charge as telecom secretary, said his big focus area would be increasing rural teledensity to 100% in the next four years.

Garg, a 1980 batch UP cadre IAS officer, replaces MF Farooqui, who retired on June 30. Ram Sewak Sharma, secretary at department of electronics & IT, was holding additional charge as telecom secretary in the interim period.

Garg is part of the first batch of secretary appointments made by the BJP led government. "Currently the tele-density of urban areas is 145% while rural areas is just 45%. We need to correct this imbalance," Garg told ET soon after taking charge.

He also spoke of the government's pet project of digitally connecting 2,50,000 villages in the next three years. He, however, declined to speak on spectrum-related issues, such as sharing and trading of airwaves.