Digital India by CII

Digital India www.telecomlive.com 15 renamed but has also been made robust. Earlier, it was whenever we are taking optical fibre to the villages, we are taking only incremental fibre from the nearest point of presence. So, it was not possible for the private player to provide end-to- end connectivity. We have already connected 25,000 villages by optical fibre network and laid almost 60,000 km fibre in the country. Additional to this in BharatNet, we will take this from the block level to all the villages. In all such blocks where less than two private service providers are there, we will take that to district level. So, this way it is going to be very robust. We were earlier going to spend Rs 25,000 cr but now going forwarditisgoingtobecomeRs75,000cr. In addition to this, we have 600,000 villages in our country, out of that telecom connectivity have reached many villages but still 55,000 villages are there where there is no mobile connectivity. In these areas, the need of mobile connectivity and internet is higher. These 55,000 have been taken on priority and within 4-5 years, we will connect all these villages by mobile phone connectivity. Already, we have taken Northeast area at the cost of more than Rs 5,000 cr. Tender will come out in October and this work will be completed in 2 years. Similarly, in LWE areas, we have already sanctioned more than Rs 1,000 cr and will be putting 2,000 towers approximately for 3,000 villages. This work is already going on and will be finished by December. Work is also going on for the hilly areas like Himachal Pradesh, Uttarakhand and J&K, etc. After all this, we will be working for remaining area and then boarder states like Rajasthan, Gujarat & Punjab and then restofthecountry. Another important thing the government has decided is the public WiFi. BSNL is taking this in a big way. States are also being involved along with the tourism department and private players are also being encouraged. BSNL on its own taken a challenge to deploy 2,500 WiFi hotspots by 2016 and by next two more years, it is going to be 40,000. Work has already been started. We are also working on the policy ofVNOandRightofWay(RoW). Last mile connectivity in rural areas is essential to make Jan Dhan Yojana a real success Pramod Saxena, Oxigen Services India Mobile commerce has taken everybody by storm but whatisreallyneededinthiscountryisthedigitisationofthe last mile. Nearly two decades ago mobile technology opened a new vista of opportunities, both for business and people in general. Since then a whole lot of innovation has been witnessed. The two greatest examples of innovation that caused disruption and change in our lives: one is Apple that created an interface that allows even a two year toddler today navigate a device, watch, seek and learn. Second is WhatsApp that took the wind out of high mighty of the telecom industry. These are the disruptions that changed the world. Innovation is no longer a preserve of big busi- ness. It's not all about big money. It is what you do that can touch the lives of vast majority of people and bring a differenceinthewaythelifeislived. While we talk about e-commerce, what we are actually doing is allowing people who have bank accounts and credit/debit cards to be able to do the transactions online. Which is great. But what will really change the lives and bring about digital revolution in this country, which is now in the making also, is the revolution of digitisation in the financial services sector. Being able to transact money instantly, anytime, anywhere using a mobile phone, which is there with the hundreds of millions of people in this country,iswhatisgoingtobringarealrevolution. TelecomLIVE October 2015 Sandeep Girotra VP & Head of India Market Nokia Networks Rajendra Kr Bahuguna Chairman & MD RailTel Corporation of India Ltd Pankaj Sharma Chief Corporate Affairs Officer Uninor Sanjeev 'Bobby' Sarin Founder & CEO Ozone Networks Ltd

Digital India by CII

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