Secy IT reviews performance of telecom operators in Ladakh

Secretary, IT Ladakh, Saugat Biswas chairing a meeting of telecom operators in Leh.
Secretary, IT Ladakh, Saugat Biswas chairing a meeting of telecom operators in Leh.

Excelsior Correspondent
LEH, June 3: Secretary, Information Technology (IT), Ladakh, Saugat Biswas today chaired a meeting of all the telecom service providers of Ladakh to explore ways and means to better the voice and data services by the telecom operators.
Representatives of BSNL, Reliance Jio, Airtel and Vindhya Telelinks Ltd participated in the meeting. During the meeting, it was informed that Airtel and Reliance Jio will improve the quality of connectivity by increasing their spectrum from 5 MHz to 10 MHz. Both the telecom service providers were urged to complete the process of up-gradation of spectrum within a month.
Airtel representative informed Biswas that the company will also install an additional 40 mobile towers 6 in Kargil and 34 in Leh the process of which will commence shortly. The Secretary, Information Technology extended every cooperation from the UT administration for facilitating the installation of the new mobile towers.
Sandeep Kotwal, Construction Head, Reliance Jio informed the meeting that the company is in the process of installing 53 towers under the Universal Service Obligation Fund (USOF) of the Government of India. He further informed that 10 out of the 53 towers located at Meeru Leh, Sangra, Abran, Akshow, Gyaling, Parkachik, Rangdum, Umba have been activated and another 24 are expected to be activated by the end of July.
BSNL representative told Biswas that problems of connectivity due to recurrent breakage of fibre-optic cable at Gangangir in Ganderbal district have been resolved and now they will be extending uninterrupted services to Ladakh.
Biswas informed the telecom service providers that a formal request has been made to the Army 14 Corps for expediting permissions for the laying of OFC/erection of mobile towers in the border areas. The Telecom service providers were asked to coordinate with the Chief Signal Officer of the 14 Corps for getting the cases expedited at the earliest.
It was decided in the meeting that henceforth all telecom services providers will notify their consumers through SMS alerts about service outages for maintenance and upgradation purposes in advance for the convenience of the consumers.
The meeting was also attended by Srikant Suse (DC Leh), Khandu D Gangurde (General Manager, BSNL), Salman Magrey (Airtel, Zonal Sales Head), Amit Kotaria (Airtel, Chief Technical Officer), Prabhat Kumar Jha (Project Manager, Vindhya Telelinks Limited) and other officers.