Govt aims to double telecom footprint in India by 2020

NEW DELHI: 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 Thursday 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 top official said all stakeholders in the country—central and state governments, local authorities and the industry— should partner to facilitate optical fibre roll out in the country which, according to her, is imperative for high-speed broadband services. "We have 83,000 village panchayats that have optic fibre network in place. BharatNet phase 1 will be completed by December," the official added.

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.

Sim verification for tourists, NRIs, likely in two-three weeks
DoT and UIDAI are in discussions to put in place a method for mobile number verification of NRIs and foreign tourists who are not eligible for Aadhaar. Adecision on evolving SIM verification method for these NRIs and foreign tourists is expected to be taken in 2-3 weeks, said Sundararajan.