Shashi Tharoor tweets his questions as Lok Sabha is adjourned

Tagging the respective Ministers, the Thiruvananthapuram MP asked questions related to Telecom, Railways and Waterways. Telecom Minister Manoj Sinha replied to the questions related to his Ministry.

With the Lok Sabha adjourned for the second consecutive day following protests by Opposition parties over various issues, Shashi Tharoor, MP from Thiruvananthapuram, took to Twitter to raise the questions he would have otherwise asked the government in Parliament.

“As the Lok Sabha has been unable to transact any business for the 3rd successive day, I thought I’d raise publicly some of the supplementary questions I might have asked, had i had the chance, to the starred questions listed for these days. Non-policy-wonks can ignore this thread,” Mr. Tharoor tweeted.

Tagging the respective Ministers, Mr. Tharoor asked questions related to Telecom, Railways and Waterways. Telecom Minister Manoj Sinha replied to the questions related to his Ministry.

“As per Govt data, 1,16,411 Gram Panchayats (GPs) are service-ready under the BharatNet project that aims to provide high-speed broadband connectivity to all GPs. What does that mean? @manojsinhabjp: what % of the optical fibre cables laid under the project are operational?” Mr Tharoor tweeted.

Apart from other details on WiFi connectivity, Mr. Sinha replied that the government had repeatedly stated facts on the project: “Phase-1 covering 1.0 Lakh GPs was completed in December 2017, and Phase-2 is now in progress. More than 3.0 Lakh KMs of OFC have been laid.”