Prasad promises help to augment telecom infra in Arunachal

Itanagar: Union Minister of IT and Electronics Ravi Shankar Prasad has assured Arunachal Pradesh Chief minister Pema Khandu  that utmost priority will be  extended to the state in IT and telecom sector.
Khandu met the union minister  on Monday to urge the Centre for a special package to augment telecom infrastructure in the state which will not only improve services but meet the need of connectivity required for GST implementation.
Khandu briefed the minister that Arunachal Pradesh has also accorded top priority to e-Governance and efforts are being made to realise this by making the entire State Civil Secretariat paperless in the days to come.
He believed that with the help of information technology, the state government would ensure transparency and accountability in governance, an official release said.
Khandu said the state has been lagging behind in terms of IT and Telecom infrastructure due to rugged and inaccessible terrain, low road density and such other reasons.
The chief minister requested the IT and telecom ministry to support the state government to do a massive augmentation in the sector. Khandu also suggested for a policy to subsidize the bandwidth charges in Arunachal Pradesh which would act as an incentive for the private service providers and encourage them to invest in the state. He pointed out that the Mission Mode projects such as e-District, Swan and State Data Centre are yet to take off due to host of reasons including limited participation in bids.
He sought the minister’s personal intervention to fast track and operationalize these projects.
Citing that the present model of Common Service Centre (CSC) scheme and even the proposed CSC 2.0 is not viable in Arunachal Pradesh in backdrop of less population, less transaction, unreliable connectivity and limited G2C services, the chief minister appealed to the ministry to devise a special mechanism to make these CSCs viable.
Khandu also sought an interim measure to resolve the connectivity issues by providing VSATs with solar power backup facilities. These VSATs will be installed at 100 administrative centres.
Wifi hotspot will be created using these VSATs for public access, the chief minister suggested while requesting the ministry to consider funding for at least 100 VSATs.
He also requested to upscale and expand NIC and SEMT with more manpower for Arunachal Pradesh. The Union minister assured Khandu that Arunachal Pradesh would be accorded utmost priority. (PTI)