Over 800 gram panchayats in West Bengal to be connected with BSNL’S National Optical Fibre Network this year
Out of 52 gram panchayats already connected to national optical fibre network, 25 gram panchayats are located in Murshidabad district and 24 other are in Purulia, informed Rabindra Nath Jha, Chief General Manager of West Bengal Telecom Circle, here on Saturday.
He further stated, cables have already been laid in 825 gram panchayats across West Bengal and Sikkim, while end-fibre testing has been concluded in 310 gram panchayats.
“Work is progressing very fast”, remarked Jha about the status of Bharatnet, which is an important part of Union Government’s Digital India project. BSNL will connect 3515 gram panchayats under 362 blocks in West Bengal Telecom Circle to the high speed network.
The Chief General Manager stated that their services are getting hampered and tremendous damage to their infrastructure has been done because of widescale construction works of national highways, state highways and civic infrastructure development works going on without any proper coordination in various areas of the state which has led to snapping of underground cables in many places. The public sector company is mulling using network along railway tracks and transmission lines to cope up with this problem and avoid disruptions.
Jha further stated, West Bengal Telecom Circle is going to concentrate on wide penetration of their mobile service in the rural areas so as to bridge the rural-urban divide of telecom services and empower more citizens through ICT.
The PSU has also come up with various attractive data services plans to provide internet connectivity at a lower and affordable rate in comparison to other telecom service providers, informed the Chief General Manager.
There is tremendous scope of growth for BSNL in rural areas, he added. This apart, BSNL is going to extend 4G data services to Siliguri, Durgapur, Asansol, Kharagpur and Gangtok shortly.
They have recently installed a new Intelligent Network platform at an investment of Rs 43 crores and will launch wi-fi based broadband services at various hotspots like Gangasagar and Tarakeshwar temple.
Further, BSNL is the only firm to have set up 96 base transceiver stations in the three left wing extremism hit districts of Purulia, Bankura and West Medinipur also known as Jangalmahal, informed Jha.
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