A DHOI in the offing?

Ashutosh Vasant, Director-Project Operation and Maintenance, RailTel Corporation of India Ltd at a PHDCCI webinar held recently has proposed, “We need to create democratization of wealth creation opportunities. To provide connectivity to every nook and corner of the country, as envisaged by our PM, we need to create the Digital Highway of India. A reliable, high capacity, high resilience provisioning that can be done by anybody on the click of a button on an app. Pay online and have access to 1 gigabyte or 1 exabyte or any capacity, and connect from one place in India to any other, whatever may be the requirement should be possible.

And this can be done is completely feasible. We already have isolated islands of excellence in this country. We have exclusive right-of-way, excellent fibre network across the country by RailTel along railway tracks; by PGCIL along the high state tension power lines; earthwire as OPGW across most states in the country; GAIL, Oil India, state power pipelines e.g. GSPC, GNFC, GIPL in the state of Gujarat have fibre networks. If these can be stitched and integrated together, a reliable, resilient backbone can be created across the country, that covers 95 percent of the population. The investment being made on creation of resources across multiple arteries and veins can be conserved and this reliable, dirt-cheap network, that can be offered within, not 1000 days, but 500 days. And all the private operators can concentrate on investments in creating reach to the actual customer. The entire paradigm changes. Integrating all the assets, tax payers’ assets already on ground, but working in isolation. All that is required is to integrate them.

This network would serve all the needs of the industry. And the value unlocked of each of these organizations would meet the divestment targets. Once such a network is created, it would attract investment from across the world. Create excellence, give it to the market to control, divest, create a responsive, transparent organization which meets the needs of the market, that is the way to go!.”
CT Bureau