President Ram Nath Kovind on Wednesday dedicated the state’s fiber grid project to the Andhra Pradesh. Under this project, more than 1 crore households, 50,000 schools and educational institutions, all government offices, more than 5,000 government hospitals and health centers and all panchayat offices in Andhra Pradesh will start getting Internet and rent-free telephone and cable TV from next December.
The President simultaneously dedicated the Andhra Pradesh Surveillance Project which is a drone-powered surveillance project, also dedicated to the nation by the President at the state secretariat in Amaravati.
The Andhra Pradesh State Fibernet Limited (APSFL), which is implementing the AP Fibre Grid project, will provide three services at tariffs starting as low as Rs 149 for 5 GB at 15 MBPS speed and 250 TV channels and a free telephone connection.
Describing the services as pioneer projects, Kovind said these would help enhance the quality of life of the people. The President said a cloud-based virtual classroom service will benefit students in rural areas, and the spreading of Internet services would help in health care using telemedicine. The use of drones would help in getting real-time information, which in turn will help the government and district administrations to improve safety and policing, he said.
After inspecting the real-time governance center at the Secretariat, the President advised Chief Minister N Chandrababu Naidu to give a presentation at the national level on real-time governance for the benefit of other states.
The APSFL, now the country’s largest state government-owned telecommunication company, has already laid more than 23,000 km of the required 55,000 km of optical fiber cables in 13 districts of Andhra Pradesh.
While the first phase targets households, the second phase envisages connecting all 9,000-gram panchayats from mandal headquarters. Horizontal connectivity from gram panchayats to schools and other educational institutions, primary health centers and government offices will be given through WiFi.