J&K records massive 12 lakh new telephone connections as India sees nearly 44 lakh new connections

The Department of Telecommunications (DoT) has released the Monthly Telecom Scenario which shows an increase of 43.9 lakh telephone connections in January 2020. With that rise in the number of connections, India has over 117.58 crore telephone connections, according to the DoT. 

Notably, India had over 117.14 telephone connections in December 2019. The sudden surge in the number of telephone connections is being credited to the Union Territory of Jammu and Kashmir, which recorded over 12 lakh connections within a month. Jammu and Kashmir now has a total of over 1.16 crore connections, which includes 1.1 lakh wireline connections and 1.15 crore wireless connections. 

Uttar Pradesh (East) has the most number of telephone connections in India till January 2020. The region has the highest share of 8.23 percent with its 9.6 crore connections. Maharashtra falls second in the list with an 8.06 percent share and 9.47 crore connections.

DoT further revealed that Andhra Pradesh, Bihar and Tamil Nadu were next in line. The three states have a 7.54 percent, 7.18 percent and 7.12 percent share, respectively.

Notably, Bihar saw a drop of about 54,000 subscribers in January 2020. Madhya Pradesh, which accounts 6.41 percent share in telephone connections, saw the biggest decline with nearly 3.4 lakh telephone connections discontinued in January 2020.

The report further reveals that the number of internet subscribers grew by 4.53 percent between July-September 2019. Further, the total number of  Internet subscribers (both broadband and narrowband) increased to 718.75 million till December’19, compared to 604.21 million in December 2018.

―Money Control