Leh: With 37 percent increase in Base Transceiver Stations (BTS) across the Ladakh, the Union Territory will soon get improved mobile connectivity.
“The total BTSs have increased to 1231 (37% increase) with 746 (36% increase) on fibre,” an official told Indus Dispatch.
He also informed a list of 330 villages/hamlets was provided by the Ladakh administration to Department of Telecommunications (DOT) for the provisioning of mobile connectivity.
Out of these, 192 have been planned under the Universal Service Obligation Fund (USOF) scheme and the work has been awarded to BSNL while the remaining villages would be planned under phase II, he added.
It is pertinent to mention here that the Ladakh UT administration has asked all telecom operators to start rolling out 5G services in the region by 2023.
This was disclosed during the second State Broadband Committee (SBC) of the Union territory of Ladakh held under the chairmanship of Advisor Ladakh, Umang Narula, at the Civil Secretariat, Leh today.
Narula observed that there has been a lot of improvement in terms of additional towers that have come up in Ladakh after it became a Union Territory. He said that the identification of land and required paperwork for setting up additional towers should take place during the winter season so that work can start immediately in the next working season.
He stated that digital communication in Ladakh should be upgraded most urgently and asked the telecom operators to start rolling out 5G services in Ladakh by 2023.
In the meeting, ADG (Rural), Sachin Lamba apprised the participants that since the first SBC meeting, 62 villages of Ladakh have been provisioned under the Universal Service Obligation Fund (USOF) scheme. RJIO has installed 4G BTS in 54 of these villages, he added.
Highlighting the difficulties faced by the public especially the students, in far-flung areas he urged the telecom operators to make internet connectivity a top priority in unreached areas. He asked them to appoint dedicated officers on the ground to address the grievances of the people.
The Principal Secretary of the IT Department, Sanjiv Khirwar, stated that in order to ensure complete coverage of villages, 128 Project sites (Mobile Towers) covering 192 villages have been sanctioned by DoT.
Additional 133 villages/hamlets have been sanctioned by DoT under the 4G Saturation project, he added. The Principal Secretary asked the telecom operators to come up with a winter action plan to address the issues faced during the winter months.
CGM, BSNL, J&K Circle, Sanjiv Tyagi apprised the meeting that BSNL has been onboarded on PGCIL fiber to ensure redundancy in the BSNL network for the Ladakh region.
