CM YS Jagan launches 300 4G cell towers

Vijayawada: Chief Minister Y S Jagan Mohan Reddy launched 300 4G mobile cell towers in remote tribal areas of Alluri Sitharama Raju and Parvatipuram Manyam districts, taking the number of towers in remote areas across the state to 400.

Launching the towers virtually from the camp office on Thursday, the Chief Minister said these towers will provide communication facilities in remote areas where there is no connectivity so far.

Out of the 300 new towers, 246 were established in ASR district while the rest were erected in Parvatipuram Manyam (44), Prakasam (4), Eluru (3), Srikakulam (2) and Kakinda (1) districts. Airtel and Reliance Jio established 136 and 164 towers respectively.

Nearly two lakh people belonging to 944 habitations will get communication facilities with the new towers, he said, adding that 42,000 people benefited from the 100 towers established earlier. These towers were established with an expenditure of Rs 400 crore.

The government has been establishing these mobile towers aiming at extending welfare benefits in full transparency to the people living in remote areas, he said, adding that efforts to establish 2,400 more mobile towers are being expedited.

He said the government was planning to extend communication facility to people living in 5,459 remote habitations by establishing 2,900 mobile towers, adding that it convinced the Centre to be part of the Rs 3,119crore plan for which lands were already handed over to build 2,900 towers.

The Chief Minster said that state government aims at completing the construction of all the towers in the next one year and connectivity would help the people gain TV and mobile connections besides registering for the welfare schemes online.

IT and industries minister G Amarnath, chief secretary Dr KS Jawahar Reddy and representatives of Airtel and Reliance Jio were among those present.