BSNL plans to connect rural areas with internet

Tribune News Service

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Shimla, July 5

Major public sector telecom services provider the Bharat Sanchar Nigam Limited (BSNL) may be facing wrath of subscribers for poor connectivity, weak signals and call dropping, but it has proposed to create a digital infrastructure, delivering services digitally and digital literacy under the Digital India programme.

A spokesperson of the BSNL said they would execute and contribute to network infrastructure building in terms of new optical fiber network, new generation technology exchanges and Wi-Fi hotspot network.

An estimated investment of Rs 6.46 crore will be in the NGN network installation and approximately Rs 1.0 crore in Wi-Fi hotspot system during the 2015-16 financial year in the state circle to boost the Prime Minister’s initiative.

The BSNL is running an eight-day programme all over the state circle with many Digital India infrastructure and training activities.

The Digital India is an initiative of the Union Government to integrate the government departments and people of India, ensuring that the government services are made available to citizens electronically by reducing paperwork.

The project will be monitored and controlled by the Digital India Advisory group and is slated for completion by 2019. A two-way platform will be created in which the service providers and the consumers will be benefited.

Poor services irk subscribers

Palampur: Despite several complaints made by the Bharat Sanchar Nigam Limited (BSNL) subscribers pertaining to poor network services in Palampur region, the higher officials of the department continue to remain unaffected over the issue.

The situation has rather worsened in the last few months. People staying at far-off villages said many a times they were unable to call the ambulance during emergency due to network failure.

Not only in the rural areas, but urban areas like Palampur, Baijnath and Paprola are also facing problems.

Subscribers from Maranda, Bhawarna, Jaisinghpur have sent number of written complaints regarding the poor BSNL services but all in vain.

A local resident said they were unable to receive calls, but were charged for the same.

Besides, dozens of mobile towers of the BSNL have no power backup, causing inconvenience to the users.

A senior officer of the BSNL said there were no funds to replace old batteries of the mobile towers.