VIJAYAWADA: Come April next year, all the gram panchayats in the State are likely to be Wireless Fidelity (Wi-Fi)-enabled as the State government is in the final leg of identifying the agency for the execution of public Wi-Fi project. The wireless internet access points will be installed in about 26,000 locations in all 12,950 gram panchayats in the State.
The officials of the Andhra Pradesh State Fibernet Ltd (APSFL) said that the Request For Proposal (RFP) for the rural Wi-Fi project has been floated in November and that they expect to have an implementing agency on board by December.
“We are in the last leg of the process for the selection of a system integrator to install Wi-Fi hotspots in the identified locations. We are targeting to complete the same by April,” an official from the Infrastructure department explained.
The APSFL is a fully-owned entity of the State government under the control of the Infrastructure, Investments and Energy department.
As per the RFP, the agency will have to complete the installation of Wi-Fi in 22 weeks from the date of award of the contract. While the system integrator would be responsible only for survey, design, deployment and post-deployment of the required equipment, the APSFL will provide the internet. It maybe recalled that the APSFL has identified Google Station as the partner for providing monetisation and management platform and signed an agreement last year for the same.
The officials said that the Wi-Fi hotspots would be installed even in urban areas, for which the tenders have been floated. “In cities, towns and urban local bodies, the wireless access points will be made available in about 4,000 locations. We had floated a tender in the past, but reinvited it. We target to complete the urban Wi-Fi project in the next two months,” another official observed.
Now, you can mail grievances to departments directly
The State government has created permanent official e-mail ids for all government departments for directly accepting grievances from the general public. Official e-mail ids were allocated to all the 36 departments. The middle level officer/assistant secretary to government in-charge of office procedure in each department shall check this mail every hour and process it as per Secretariat Office Manual.
Digital transformation 12,950 gram
panchayats to be Wi-Fi-enabled
26,000
locations to get wireless internet access points
4,000
locations in urban local bodies to get wireless internet access points
Request For Proposal (RFP) for the rural Wi-Fi project has been floated in November
Implementing agency to be on board by December
Wifi projects are a part of the State government’s digital transformation programme
Google Station is the APSFL’s partner for providing monetisation and management platform