Rakesh Garg takes over as new telecom secretary, says increasing rural tele-density priority

NEW DELHI: Rakesh Garg took charge as the new telecom secretary on Thursday, saying his big focus area would be increasing rural tele-density to a 100% in the next four years.

Garg, a 1980 batch UP cadre IAS officer, steps into the shoes of M F Farooqui, who retired June 30. Farooqui had assumed the reins of the telecom department as its senior most officer in April 2013. Ram Sewak Sharma, who is secretary, Department of Electronics & IT (DeitY), held additional charge as telecom secretary in the interim period.

Garg is part of the first batch of secretary appointments made by the new 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 government's pet project of digitally connecting ?the 2,50,000 villages in the next three years.

"Be it through spectrum or optic fibre, we need to bring about e- education. A child in the remotest part of this country should be able to study whatever he wishes to digitally," Garg said.

He however declined to speak on spectrum-related issues, such as sharing and trading of airwaves, saying that bandwidth was only a means to achieve a stated objectives and the spectrum policy would be around the stated objective of the government.