Citizens will have to wait for another six to nine months to get the much-awaited public Wi-Fi access points.
On the sidelines of the Bengaluru Tech Summit 2019, Deputy Chief Minister C.N. Ashwath Narayan on Wednesday said the city would have over 4,000 high-speed fibre Internet access spots which would be set up at a cost of ₹100 crore by a private Internet service provider (ISP).
The facility will enable people who are near the access points to use high-speed, 1 gigabyte, Wi-Fi for an hour every day for free, and for a nominal cost during the rest of the day. The network will eventually cover 800 km across the city.
The Deputy Chief Minister said, “The broadband player ACT has got in touch with the government and offered its willingness to give one-hour free Internet access to citizens. The government will not be investing any money in this project and investments will be done by ACT under its CSR activities.”
The BBMP and other urban development bodies will work on legal frameworks and regulatory formalities for the project while the ISP will set up towers, cameras, poles, and other network infrastructure required to run the Wi-Fi network.
“Public Wi-Fi access has been a long-standing demand. It now comes as a precursor to us becoming a smart and digital city,” Dr. Narayan said.
Bala Malladi, CEO of ACT (Atria Convergence Technologies), said that in continuation of its existing engagement with the government in multiple areas, the ISP had installed 3,000 CCTV cameras across the city. “We hope to significantly contribute to the city’s digital connectivity and make a difference in the lives of people here,” he added.
Unveiling of revised IT policy put off
The State government has decided to put off the release of its revised information technology (IT) policy. It had initially planned to unveil the fresh policy at Bengaluru Tech Summit which concluded on Wednesday.
“We have decided to defer the release of the policy to another date to ensure that there is no violation of the [model] code of conduct [in force for the byelections],” said a top bureaucrat.
The polling for the byelections in 15 Assembly constituencies is scheduled for December 5.
Karnataka sets up award to honour unicorns
Deputy Chief Minister C.N. Ashwath Narayan and Kris Gopalakrishnan, chairman Vision Group IT and chairman Axilor Ventures, presenting Bengaluru Impact Award to Sachin Bansal, co-founder of Flipkart, in Bengaluru on Wednesday.
Karnataka has set up a special recognition, Bengaluru Impact Award, to honour successful entrepreneurs who made significant contributions to the growth and development of the city.
The maiden set of these awards were given away on Wednesday at Bengaluru Technology Summit to nine unicorns (privately held startups valued at over $1 billion) who built enterprises that reshaped the startup ecosystem in the city.
The winners included Sachin Bansal of Flipkart, Hari Menon of BigBasket, Bhavish Aggarwal of Ola Cabs, Naveen Tiwari of InMobi, Nandan Reddy of Swiggy, Dhiraj Rajaram of Mu Sigma, Pranay Chulet of Quikr, Byju Raveendran of BYJU’S, and Sujeet Kumar of Udaan.
While giving away the awards, Deputy Chief Minister C.N. Ashwath Narayan said it was a matter of great pride that a sizeable number of unicorns belonged to Karnataka, when the whole country had only 27 of them. “We thought it was appropriate to acknowledge these unicorns who have placed Bengaluru on the global map. We are confident that a fresh set of unicorns are in the making now, with many city startups doing extremely well,” he said.
Earlier at a session on what makes Bengaluru tick, Mr. Bansal said, “This city has an ecosystem of entrepreneurship and is super attractive where talent is concerned.”
Mr. Aggarwal expressed a similar opinion, “After China, Bengaluru has been the most conducive place to work and that’s why we have come here. It is also the best test market for product launches.”
Mr. Menon was also of the opinion that Bengaluru has the right set of customers and people for product launches. “At one time, Bengaluru was very laid back, but now things have changed a lot, and it has become truly global,” he said. “Of course, the weather too has changed,” he added.
