The Telangana government aims to provide Internet connectivity to all households in the state under its ‘Digital Telangana’ initiative, IT Secretary Jayesh Ranjan said.
“We are trying to ensure providing Internet to each and every household in the state,” he told a Ficci-organised seminar on ‘Integrated Digital Solutions for a Smarter Telangana’.
“We are making this ambitious target of providing Internet to every person in different ways through broadband connectivity, 4G, Wi-Fi and e-panchayats. We will ensure that ‘Internet For All’ does not mere just remain a slogan,” he added.
Digital Telangana rests on two important pillars – supply component (“Internet For All”) and demand component (“Let us usher in Digital Democracy”), Ranjan said.
“We are working on laying optic fibre to every household. There are more than 8.5 million households in the state and the opportunity that has arisen for us to accept such a
daunting challenge,” he added.
He further said that along with the government’s flagship Watergrid programme, wherein piped water is aimed to be supplied to each household, the project’s duct lines would also be used (same trenches) to put optical fibre cables to reach every household in the state.
“Another way we are ensuring that Internet reaches everyone is by encouraging private telecom players to roll out 4G services,” Ranjan said, adding that two telecom firms have already announced that they want to roll out 4G services in the entire state by the end of this year.
Similarly, in order to provide Internet facilities to everyone, the government wants to make Wi-Fi availability in Hyderabad, Warangal and other important towns.
Another programme that the government has taken up is ‘e-Panchayats’, in which even if one does not have facility to access Internet at home, one can always utilise this platform to avail financial and citizen services, among others.
On a pilot basis, Wi-Fi services have been launched at a few tourist locations here.
“We found that it works quite well and now we have set target of one year to complete Wi-Fi enablement for the entire state,” Ranjan said.
“We have over 8,600 panchayats in our state and we want to ensure that Internet facility is offered in panchayat offices in an organised way by creating ‘Digital Telangana Centres’, from where a large number of citizen services will be offered,” he added.
Welfare pensions are offered in villages where a large number of people get work under government-sponsored schemes and receive wages, Ranjan said.
“We also want to ensure that all these transactions — payment of pensions and wages — happen through ‘Digital Telangana Centres’,” he added.
On financial inclusion, the official said the government is expecting that ‘Digital Telangana Centres’ would eventually function as micro banks, wherein banking services can be offered and also that these become centres of micro insurance.
On demand side, the government’s efforts are to make one member of every household digital-literate and also launch school computer literacy programme, he added.
