Himachal Pradesh Chief Secretary Prabodh Saxena directed the officers of the Telecom Department and other cellular service providers to take necessary steps to provide assured high speed and reliable connectivity facility in remote and rural areas of the state.

Presiding over the meeting of the State Broadband Committee held under the National Broadband Mission (NBM) here on Thursday, Prabodh Saxena called it necessary to bridge the digital divide between the urban and the rural areas.

He also asked for time bound efforts to strengthen fiber connectivity in rural areas and provide quality digital connectivity to ensure universal access of broadband facilities to the people.

Directions were issued to expedite the cases of grant of clearances under the Forest Rights Act (FRA) to achieve the targets under the 4G saturation project in a time bound manner.

He also directed to take necessary steps for the integration of additional data layers in PM Gatishakti State Master Plan Portal.

Saxena said, “The role of digital connectivity is important for the inclusive development of all the 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.

NBM is required to design and implement the strategy to be adopted by all stakeholders to achieve the goal of ‘Broadband for All’ said the Chief Secretary, and efforts to be made to achieve the targets.

He also gave necessary directions to the concerned authorities for providing high speed broadband facility in all rural areas and increasing the fiber network.

Principal Secretary Revenue, Onkar Chand Sharma, Principal Secretary Urban Development, Devesh Kumar, Secretary Information Technology, Dr. Abhishek Jain, Secretary Rural Development, Priyatu Mandal, Director IT Mukesh Repaswal, officers of Bharat Sanchar Nigam Limited, Department of Telecom, Government of India, Forest Department and Himachal Pradesh State Electricity Board were also present on the occasion.

Representatives of the Cellular Operations Authority of India and the Digital Infrastructure Providers Association attended the meeting through video conferencing.