The Prime Minister on Monday asked officials to address the call drops issue urgently, as it directly affects the common man.
Prime Minister Narendra Modi has expressed his concerns over the recent call drops issue in the country, asking officials to address the issue urgently. Modi gave the direction in a meeting held on Monday, where he reviewed the state of rural and digital infrastructure in India. “The Prime Minister expressed serious concern over the issue of call drops and asked officials as to what steps are being taken to address this problem, which, he said, directly affects the common man. He directed that steps be taken urgently to resolve the problem, and also to ensure that the problems in voice connectivity do not extend to data connectivity in future,” said an official statement from the PMO.
The PM also directed Indian officials to analyse the possibility of using resources like railway and other communication infrastructure, in order to bring mobile connectivity to remote areas of the country. According to the statement, Modi wants the targets for digital infrastructure to be in sync with the targets for the Digital India initiative.
Further, in a separate event, Communications Minister Ravi Shankar Prasad told operators that the government will need all the help that is required to help them. Telecom service providers had earlier been asked to improve the quality of connectivity. In fact, Prasad himself had earlier blamed telcos for the call drops issue. Addressing this issue at a recent meet, major telecom operators assembled to state lack of support from the Central Government as a major reason behind it.
The Telecom Regulatory Authorioty of India (TRAI) is also expected to come out with a consultation paper on this issue within a fortnight. R.S. Sharma, Chairman of TRAI, had earlier said that TRAI will look at disincentivising telcos for call drops. He said that TRAI has asked the service providers to submit tariff plans that incentivise call drops.
Telcos, on the other hand, have blamed the lack of mobile towers for the call drops issues. Bharti Airtel MD and CEO, Gopal Vittal, had earlier said that more mobile towers and more spectrum is what the company needs in order to address the issue.
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