From Our Special Correspondent
New Delhi: The issue of poor telecom services in the Northeast including Meghalaya was raised in the Rajya Sabha by Ms Wansuk Syiem who demanded that the spare capacity unused by the Ministries of Power and Defense should be made available for common use.
Making a special mention in the Upper House recently, Syiem said that the BSNL is not able to upgrade the telecom network in the region due to its lack of capacity.
“Both the Ministry of Power and the Ministry of Defence are holding spare broadband spectrum capacity which is now lying idle. This spare capacity should be given to BSNL for development and expansion of the badly-needed telecom infrastructure in the remote and backward North Eastern region,” she said.
The MP pointed out that thousands of young boys and girls from the region can be benefitted if mobile, internet and landline telephone system can be upgraded. There can be number of call centres and BPOs since the young boys and girls are fluent in English with western accent because of the spread of Education here, the MP pointed out.
Poor telecommunication services in the North Eastern region, especially of the state-owned BSNL, came in for severe criticism at several meetings convened by the Centre from time to time. During the deliberations all the NE states spoke about the poor quality of BSNL services including slow internet and broadband connectivity.
Telecom links in the NE region including Meghalaya mainly in case of cell phones have remained slow and undependable for a long time now. On the other hand, telecom links like that of Grameen Phones of adjacent Bangladesh allows better connectivity in some of the bordering areas.
The lone Rajya Sabha member from Meghalaya has also taken up the matter with the concerned ministries on this vital issue.
