GATISHAKTI SANCHAR PORTAL

GATISHAKTI SANCHAR PORTAL : BROADBAND TO ALL

    GatiShakti Sanchar portal has been launched by the Department of Telecommunications to centralise and speed up approvals for laying of fibre and tower installations and boost up the upcoming 5G rollout. It was done to facilitate universal and equitable access to broadband services across India, especially in the rural areas. The portal, developed by MP State Electronics Development Corporation on behalf of Department of Telecommunication (DoT), was launched by Union Minister for Communications, Electronics and IT Ashwini Vaishnaw at an even in New Delhi in the presence of various state chief secretaries and IT secretaries along with the top officials of various telecom service providers (TSPs).

     The GatiShakti Sanchar portal facilitates centralised Right of Way (RoW) approvals. An online platform for the industry to apply for RoW approvals as they build telecom infrastructure, including for 5G services, the GatiShakti Sanchar portal will offer a unified, integrated, centralised approach covering all states and UTs, and central government ministries. It leads to faster laying of more optical fibre cable and thus accelerates fiberization, which will ensure better broadband speed across the nation. It will also speed up the installation of towers which will enhance connectivity and improve the quality of various telecom services. For the telecom service provider, it will help to reduce the days involved in getting stipulated permissions, lower costs, and facilitate ease of doing business.

    The portal, the ministry said, has been developed keeping in view the vision areas of the National Broadband Mission at the core, which are, providing broadband infrastructure as a core utility to every citizen, Governance and services on demand and in particular, digital empowerment of the citizens of our country. "To fulfil this vision, it is imperative that a backbone of infrastructure is created by facilitating smooth and efficient deployment of Digital Communications Infrastructure across the country. To ensure that, DoT, is launching the “GatiShakti Sanchar" portal," the ministry said, adding that this will provide a robust mechanism to achieve the goal of “Broadband for All” as envisaged in the National Digital Communication Policy.

    Lauding the state governments for their proactive role in streamlining processes Vaishnaw said, "Further, the integration of the portal with geographic information system (GIS), will give state governments and various agencies more visibility into the optical fibre mesh and digital networks that are in place. The RoW approval time has already come down from 100 days to 22 days." Once the work on the technological as well as legal aspects are done, the 22 days cycle could further be reduced to even one week, going forward, he added.

    The launch of the portal is an important step towards creating a robust mechanism to achieve the goal of ‘Broadband to All’ as envisaged in the National Digital Communication Policy-2018. Currently, the application process for the installation of digital infrastructure gets delayed due to inconsistency and uncertainty of policy and processes adopted at various levels. So, there is a need for fast-tracking application process to overcome the challenges of implementation of Right of Way Rules-2016. This portal will bring transparency, accountability, and responsiveness to all stakeholders. This is a one-step forward towards ‘Ease of Doing Business’, bringing transparency, accountability and responsiveness to all telecom stakeholders while processing the application. Also providing a strong mechanism to achieve the National Digital Communication Policy-2018 goal of ‘Broadband to All’