Prabodh Saxena, chief secretary of Himachal Pradesh, has asked officers to take necessary steps to provide assured high-speed and reliable digital connectivity in remote and rural areas of the state.
Presiding over a meeting of the State Broadband Committee, under the National Broadband Mission (NBM), he asked for time-bound efforts to strengthen fibre connectivity in rural areas and provide quality digital connectivity to ensure universal access to broadband facilities to the people. Directions were issued to expedite the cases of grant of clearances under the Forest Rights Act to achieve the targets under the 4G saturation project in a time-bound manner.
Further, Saxena asked the officers to take the necessary steps to integrate additional data layers in the Gatishakti State Master Plan Portal. He stated that the role of digital connectivity is important for the inclusive development of all sectors and facilitation of quality broadband connectivity in rural and urban areas will ensure e-governance, transparency, financial inclusion and ease of doing business. This will also speed up socio-economic development. He added that NBM is required to design and implement the strategy to be adopted by all stakeholders to achieve the goal of ‘Broadband for All’. He also gave necessary directions to the concerned authorities for providing high speed broadband facilities in all rural areas and increasing the fibre network.
