Sonowal government mulls internet services in all households

By Our Staff Reporter

Guwahati, June 17: Chief Minister Sarbanda Sonowal has asked the Information Technology department to list out basic problems faced by the people of Assam and use Information Technology as a vehicle to address these problems.

Holding a review meeting of the Information Technology department, Sonowal asked the department to take the lead in finding breakthroughs for using information technology for poverty alleviation and social transformation.

Sonowal said, "IT penetration in Assam should be enhanced to a level where people can claim it to be their fundamental right and in ensuring that the department should take a pro-active role to extend 'fibre to home' facility to all households".

IT Minister Keshab Mahanta said the "fibre to home facility" is Sonowal's dream project.

"This facility is in place in Hyderabad. Every household is connected to a cable through which the consumer can avail of three facilities - TV, internet and telephone. It is an ambitious project. We are working on it," Mahanta said.

Chief Minister Sonowal also advocated introduction of IT in school curriculum to infuse digital literacy in the State. He also emphasised that his government will take IT oriented initiatives for bringing in transparency in governce and making the life of common men better, and providing technological solutions to the problems of the poor and downtrodden sections of society.

Sonowal also asked the department to take steps to make operatiol the services like 'CM's help line', 'samadhan on-line' to help common men get their grievances redressed. To extend IT services to the doorstep of everybody, Sonowal also asked the department to do the needful to avail the contents of internet in multi-languages format.