Telecom secretary Aruna Sundararajan has said that the government is making efforts to double India’s telecom infrastructure by the year 2020. She called upon all stakeholders in the country -- central and state governments, local authorities and the industry to facilitate laying out of optical fibre in the country for delivering high-speed broadband services. Besides, she said that whether it is smart cities, 5G, Internet of Things (IoT), they need optical fibre. Fibre first programme in this country is a national imperative and they must start working together.
Sundararajan has said that in the next 2-3 years, they expect to see many more initiatives to come because government itself is working on portfolio of Rs 1 lakh crore including phase 1 of Bharat Net. She noted that they have 83,000 village panchayats that have optic fibre network in place and the first phase of BharatNet project will be completed by December this year. Adding further, she pointed out that the government is pushing ahead with Bharat Net project rollout to connect the country's 2.5 lakh gram panchayats with optical fibre cable (OFC) for high-speed internet access by March 2019.
Telecom secretary further observed that there were a lot of anomalies in policies at various levels that would need to be aligned for the speedy rollout of the digital infrastructure. She cited a report saying every 1.3% increase in broadband penetration leads to 1% increase in GDP, but in the case of India, it has resulted in 3.3% increase in GDP. She also expressed her hoped that with Bharat Net, every village will have OFC capability. She added that for the last 10 years, people have been counting how many kilometres of roads had been built, but now it is important to count kilometres of OFC laid in the country for growth.