New Delhi, Nov 12 (PTI) The naxal-hit areas across ninestates brought under mobile coverage in 2016 have recordedconsumption of 400 GB of data per day on 2G network of thesole service provider BSNL, as per a joint statement of thestate-owned firm and network vendor VNL.
"According to India's state-owned telecom operator BSNLand Indian telecom gear manufacturer VNL that set up telecomnetwork in Left Wing Extremism (LWE) impacted areas, datausage has surged to an all-time high of more than 400Gigabytes per day, thereby ushering in development andprosperity," a joint network by BSNL and Vihaan NetworkLimited today said.
The Cabinet in June 2013 approved setting up mobiletowers in nine states affected by the naxal violence toimprove communication as none of the telecom operatorsventured in to these regions.
The project was again sent for approval of the Cabinetdue to change in cost structure and was cleared in August2014.
The government identified areas in the states of MadhyaPradesh, Chhattisgarh, Andhra Pradesh, Bihar, Jharkhand,Maharashtra, West Bengal, Odisha and Uttar Pradesh for theproject and assigned the task to the state-run firm.
BSNL received bids from only two domestic telecom gearmakers- Vihaan Networks Limited and Himachal FuturisticCommunications Limited for the project.
Both the vendors jointly installed 2,199 solar poweredmobile towers in the naxal affected areas four months beforethe deadline of December 2016.
"We always believed that Indian companies have greatpotential and if given little support, they can become worldplayers. As per Government of India's initiatives, BSNL willcontinue to provide services in most difficult areas with thehelp of such Indian companies," BSNL Chairman and ManagingDirector Anupam Shrivastava said.
The statement claimed it to be the "world's largest greenmobile network" which provides voice and data to more than20,000 villages in LWE areas.
"Data usage is not just taking off in urban centres, butit is fast powering change in the hinterland. Even tribalareas, which did not have access to even voice connectivityuntil recently, are now consuming data for banking and otherapplications. We are proud that we could contribute to thisnoble venture," VNL's Founder Chairman Rajiv Mehrotra said.
PTI PRSSBT.
This is unedited, unformatted feed from the Press Trust of India wire.