In a step towards making Delhi a WiFi city, the Delhi Dialogue Commission (DDC) has taken onboard Mahesh Murthy, Nikhil Pahwa and Pranesh Prakash who will form the DDC’s task-force on WiFi.
While Murthy is a start-up expert with over 15 years of experience in online marketing, Pahwa is the founder of MediaNama — a digital media news and analysis portal. Prakash is the director of Centre for Internet and Society (CIS).
The Delhi government said it hopes that the move will “bolster the internet economy, spur trade and tourism, improve women’s safety and security applications, increase worker productivity, make the city more attractive to business, bridge the digital divide and make the government more accessible and responsive to its citizens.”
Invitations to be a part of the task force have also been sent to telecom experts in the Indian Telecom Service and the Indian Posts and Telecommunication Accounts and Finance Service.
The DDC has received over 400 emails and thousands of WhatsApp messages after it invited suggestions from citizens on making Delhi a WiFi city. “Presently, the DDC is studying the responses that it has received,” a DDC member said.
He also said that a preliminary consultation was held with the IT and Telecom cell at FICCI. A one-day Delhi WiFi conference will also be held with FICCI’s secretary general to involve national and international stakeholders.
“The DDC is sending out invites and collaboration requests to cities and countries across the world to study best practices of successful WiFi implementations and learn from the failures in many countries,” the member said. The government’s Department of Information Technology will hold per-consultations with stakeholders on March 24, 25 and 26, sources said.