HYDERABAD: Despite the efforts of the state government and its IT Minister KT Rama Rao on furthering information technology and other allied services in the past few years, the penetration of Internet in Telangana has remained the lowest among southern states, and one of the lowest in the country, says a report.
According to Internet and Mobile Association of India’s (IAMAI) newly released India Internet 2019 report, Internet has reached to only 31 per cent of Telangana. Andhra Pradesh also shares the same figures for Internet reachability.
When compared to other southern States, such as Kerala (54 per cent), Tamil Nadu (47 per cent), Karnataka (39 per cent), Telangana and AP remain poorest in terms of Internet penetration, the IAMAI report said.
However, it is the eastern states, including West Bengal, Bihar, Jharkhand and Odisha, which are worse than Telangana.
When contacted, IT Secretary Jayesh Ranjan said, “We realised that incremental approach towards furthering Internet has given marginal returns. This is the reason we have introduced T-Fibre, where we are applying a saturation approach,’’ he said.
“We are confident that in the next two years, Internet penetration in other States may increase from 30 to 55 per cent, but in Telangana it will increase to 100 per cent,” Principal Secretary of IT and Industries Jayesh Ranjan told Express.
Under T-Fibre, the State government is laying optic fibre cables across Telangana, which may be leased to big telecom firms like Jio, Airtel and Vodafone after completion of the project. While reachability of Internet is still catching up throughout the country, the scenario is different when it comes to Metros like Hyderabad.
The Internet and Mobile Association of India’s (IAMAI) report, India Internet 2019 has pegged Hyderabad’s total Internet users at 42 lakh, higher than that of Pune and Ahmedabad.
However, the figure is lower when compared to Delhi, where there is a mammoth 1.12 crore Internet users, Mumbai has 1.17 crore, Bengaluru with 60 lakh, Chennai has about 54 lakh, and Kolkata was pegged with 61 lakh users.