HYDERABAD: Telangana continues to have the least amount of internet penetration (31 per cent) among the Southern States and remains among the lowest in the country, according to the recently-released Internet and Mobile Association of India’s (IAMAI) Digital India 2019 -Round 2 report.
The report accessed by Express, was released in May end, and shows that while almost all States recorded an improvement in internet penetration between March 2019 and November 2019, Telangana maintained the status quo of having 31 per cent penetration.
To put things into perspective, in the nine-month period, Karnataka improved its internet penetration from 39 per cent to 42 per cent. The data also shows that the State was below the national average when it came to reachability of internet, and that margin increased substantially between March and November 2019.
In March, the all-India average for internet penetration was at 36 per cent and it increased to 40 per cent in November. However, in Telangana, it remained the same.
It is important to note that neighbouring Andhra Pradesh too recorded the same 31 per cent figure without any change. In contrast, several States which play a key role in the IT sector in the country such as Maharashtra and Tamil Nadu, recorded substantial increase in reachability of internet. For instance, in Maharashtra it increased from 43 per cent in March 2019 to 50 per cent in November.
Earlier in November, Express had reported based on IAMAI’s India Internet 2019 report, how Telangana was lagging behind several States when it came to internet penetration. This current report, which is a second part of the India Internet 2019 report, shows that while several States made an improvement in the nine-month period, Telangana remained stagnant. Despite repeated attempts, Express was not able to reach State’s IT Secretary Jayesh Ranjan regarding the matter.
Meanwhile, the IAMAI report shows that Hyderabad recorded a 2 lakh increase in internet users between March and November 2019, with total users around 44 lakh. However, that was still on the lower side when it comes to other metros such as Delhi, Mumbai, and, Bengaluru. The IAMAI report said that Mumbai had the highest number of users at 1.3 crore.