SHIMLA: Dehradun, Guwahati, Siliguri- all Hill towns- are providing the 5G Services to its residents. But the people in the Capital city here and other parts of Himachal will have to wait till 2024 before telecom service providers roll out the 5 G networks in the state.
The Sukhu Government has appointed a techie, Gokul Butail as an IT Advisor with a Cabinet rank, but he has to yet to take a call on why Himachal is lagging behind on
5 G service network.
Himalayan city of Dehradun in Uttarakhand joined the exclusive 5G Service club of 50 cities in India by providing 5G network to its residents when Reliance Jio launched its "True 5 G service" in the city on January 11, 2023.
But in Himachal, people have to wait till 2024 to get 5G services functional to bridge this “digital divide”.
Reason: 'Sarkari IT Tantra' of the state woke up to this reality today.
Secretary, IT Dr. Abhishek Jain brought this to light today here while presiding over the state-level meeting on modalities needed for 5G-enabled services.
The meeting was attended by Special Secretary IT Torul S. Raveesh, Officials of PWD, UD, Revenue, Electricity Departments and Various Service providers.
Shimla city has lagged behind as the state IT department has yet to ready the government infrastructure, street furniture for telecom structure for making 5G services functional in state by 2024.
In Fact, there are as many as 50 cities in India where toe telecom service providers- Reliance Jio and Airtel- provide the 5-G Services in India.
The 5G rollout started in India in October 2022.
BJP-ruled Gujarat is the first state in India where the Reliance Jio of Mukesh Ambani left “no stone unturned to launch the 5 G Service in all of its 33 district headquarters of the state”.
Airtel is offering its 5G Services in Delhi, Mumbai, Chennai, Bengaluru, Hyderabad, Siliguri, Nagpur, Varanasi, Panipat, Gurugram, Guwahati and Patna.
On the other its competitor, Reliance offers 5 G network in Delhi NCR, Mumbai, Kolkata,Varanasi, Hyderabad, Pune, Chennai, Bengaluru, Nathdwara (Rajasthan) and all the 33 district headquarters of Gujarat.
Airtel has launched the 5 G Services in the cities, but the Reliance Jio has made available beta on a invite-only basis, informed the telecom sources.
In Himachal also, the government needs to be proactive by fast tracking the 5G Services in the state.
Jain said the data is ‘new oil’ to make all the segments work with efficiency and momentum.
“This is not possible without the development of telecommunication sector and 5G services”, Jain said.
Dr. Abhishek Jain said both government officials and service providers need to work in tandem to achieve the target.
Secondly, it has been experienced that all the service providers keep on digging land for installing cables and poles. “It causes inconvenience to the people and also pollutes the environment”, Jain pointed out.
There is a need to put mechanism in place so that the damage and inconvenience to public is avoided, while installing 5G service, Jain said.
He suggested that all the service providers must coordinate and execute the installation work at one go so that there is no need to dig out the land time and again.
Jain said the telecom sector should be robust and to make it more reliable there is need to ensure quality work.
“The service providers must also consider transparency and rights of every stakeholder by causing least harm to government as well as private property”, Jain said.
