IT&E dept takes up complete coverage of telecom services across state

The state Information Technology and Electronics department has taken a move towards complete coverage of telecom services in every nook and corner of the state.

Around 263 administrative units/villages in nine districts of Alipurduar, Jalpaiguri, Kalimpong, South and North Dinajpur, Murshidabad, Nadia and West Midnapore are without mobile/internet coverage as a result of which official work gets badly affected. Tourists visiting these areas suffer because of poor telecom connectivity too.

To address this long-standing issue, a meeting was held on Tuesday afternoon between senior IT&E department officials headed by additional Chief Secretary Debashis Sen and representatives of telecom service providers and tower providers. The next meeting will be held on August 24.

The formation of a right-of-way policy and possibility of an incentive framework along with uniform fee structure was discussed at length to ensure how coverage could be extended to these shadow zones.

The operators spoke of a single window approval mechanism and holding of regular meetings with the district committees.

A quarterly review meeting has also been proposed by the IT&E department.

Senior officials of IT&E department proposed that use of solar power with lithium batteries could use DC output directly into the tower transmission equipment for optimum green solutions in many cases.