Strong opposition by councillors to the digging of roads appears to be slowing down BSNL’s progress in laying optical fibre cables across the city to provide subscribers with high speed Internet.
Addressing a press conference in Mysuru on Monday, K.L. Jairam, Principal General Manager, Mysuru Telecom District, has appealed to councillors to co-operate with BSNL in laying the optical fibre cables and help get residents of Mysuru on the “information super highway”.
Mysuru Telecom District, which has to lay the cables across 700 km in its jurisdiction, currently has the approval to do so for 400 km. However, progress has been delayed on account of various hurdles including opposition by the councillors.
“We have about ₹180 crore worth of optical fibre cables to be laid under the ‘Fibre To The Home’ (FTTH) scheme of BSNL. There are about 65,000 broadband subscribers in Mysuru Telecom District covering Mysuru and the adjoining Chamarajanagar district. Except for about 3,000 to 4,000 of the total 65,000 subscribers, a bulk of the subscribers are in Mysuru,” Mr. Jairam said, and added that, the deadline to complete the laying of the cable is 2019.
BSNL is now providing 300 to 400 Internet connections every month in this manner. It is targeting 1,000 connections per month to meet its deadline.
Mr. Jairam also regretted the delay by the Forest Department in granting them permission to lay an optical fibre cable through a portion of the forests to provide connectivity to the Biligiri Ranganathaswamy Temple. “It has been more than 15 years since we asked for permission,” he said.
Pointing out that Mysuru Telecom District has laid an optical fibre cable connecting all 365 gram panchayats in Mysuru and Chamarajanagar districts, Mr. Jairam said the Digital India programme is not urban-centric but spread across all panchayat offices of Mysuru and Chamarajanagar districts.
The availability of high quality bandwidth has helped in e-governance and servicing beneficiaries in their own places, Mr. Jairam said, adding that banking and post office activities in rural areas too had been galvanised owing to the availability of quality and reliable bandwidth through optical fibre cable.
