New Delhi: As India ranks 122 out of 141 in the global mobile internet speed rankings, the government on Wednesday told the Parliament that the efforts are on to provide mobile connectivity in every uncovered village of the aspirational districts as there are 7,287 such villages in the states of Andhra Pradesh, Chhattisgarh, Jharkhand, Maharashtra and Odisha where there is no mobile connectivity.
However, in a written reply to a question asked by BJP MPs Arvind Kumar Sharma and Bharatiben Dhirubhai Shiyal, Union Telecom Minister Ashwini Vaishnaw told Lok Sabha that the government is working on providing 4G connectivity in 502 uncovered aspirational district villages of four states namely Uttar Pradesh, Bihar, Madhya Pradesh, and Rajasthan.
Spelling out the major schemes for expansion of internet/broadband services in rural and remote areas of the country with support from Universal Service Obligation Fund (USFO), Vaishnaw said, "BharatNet project to create a network to connect all the Gram Panchayats (about 2.6 lakh) with broadband in the country and provision of 4G mobile services in Left Wing Extremism (LWE) affected areas."
Provision of mobile services in uncovered villages in Assam, Manipur, Mizoram, Nagaland, Tripura, Sikkim, and Arunachal Pradesh (national highways only) of northeastern regions are one of the top priorities of the ministry.
The government is also working on providing 4G mobile services in uncovered villages of Meghalaya, Arunachal Pradesh, two districts of Assam, and providing mobile connectivity in 354 uncovered villages of Jammu &Kashmir, Ladakh, Himachal Pradesh, Uttar Pradesh, Bihar, Rajasthan, Gujarat, Uttarakhand, border areas and other priority areas.
The Telecom Ministry is also aiming to provide 4G mobile connectivity in 85 uncovered villages in Andaman & Nicobar Islands and establish public wi-fi hotspots at the 25,000 rural telephone exchanges of BSNL.
In reply to another question about the steps taken to tap e-commerce business by India Post, the Telecom Minister said, "The Department of Post has set up parcel hubs with the facility of online tracking and tracing of e-commerce parcels to tag the e-commerce business opportunities."
The real-time delivery status update through postman mobile application, application programme interface (API) integration with e-commerce companies for data exchange of tracking events starting from booking to delivery, setting up of nodal delivery centers to expedite doorstep delivery of e-commerce parcels, etc are key steps being taken by the department to give a boost to e-commerce delivery.