The Union ministry of communications has included four villages from Darjeeling Lok Sabha constituency under the central government’s plan to provide “4G services in uncovered villages”.
As part of the project cost, the central government will invest about Rs 1 crore in each village to build 4G infrastructure, said Darjeeling’s BJP MP Raju Bista on Thursday.
The four villages selected for the project are Singalila under Darjeeling-Pulbazar block in Darjeeling district, Pankhasari forest and Tohday-Tangta Khasmahal under Gorubatan block and Lish forest village under Kalimpong-1 block, all under Kalimpong district.
The villages are among the most far-flung of Darjeeling and Kalimpong districts.
In fact Tohday-Tangta is about 140km from the district headquarters and on the India-Bhutan border is designated as a P-2 polling booth. This means polling personnel have to leave two days before the polling day.
In other polling booths, the polling personnel leave a day before the election. In the absence of proper mobile connectivity, many residents of Tohday-Tangta use the service of Bhutanese mobile networks.
The project for providing 4G services in uncovered villages across India is being undertaken at the total cost of Rs. 26,316 crore and will cover about 24,680 villages in remote and difficult-to-access areas of the country.
Under the project, 6,279 villages having only 2G/3G connectivity will also be upgraded to 4G, said Bista.
“Improving connectivity infrastructure in difficult and remote regions is one of our government’s top priority, and along with these I am pushing for the inclusion of Pokhriabong and Milikthung villages in Mirik also for 4G connections,” added Bista.
The Union cabinet had approved the project in July this year and the project will be executed by the BSNL.
The project is aimed at promoting the delivery of various e-governance services, banking services, telemedicine, tele-education, among others.
“The push for digital inclusion and connectivity is an integral part of ‘antyodaya’ vision of the Government under the leadership of Hon’ble Prime Minister Shri Narendra Modi ji,” said Bista in a written statement.