PANJIM: Concerned over the network connectivity issue across the State, Chief Minister Dr Pramod Sawant on Monday announced that the government is in process of finalising Goa Infrastructure Policy 2020, related to installation of mobile towers and Right of Way (RoW).
Sawant said the government would be granting maximum permissions for installation of mobile towers, mostly on government land and premises, across the State within next one month.
He was speaking to media persons at the sidelines of the launch of online Building Approval Plan Management System of the Department of Town and Country Planning (TCP).
“To bring in necessary transparency in the government functioning, it is important that we go online with all our services. But I agree there is a connectivity issue,” Sawant said.
The Chief Minister said the government is in process of finalising Goa Infrastructure Policy related to installation of mobile towers and Right of Way (RoW) permissions in which the process of installation of mobile towers and RoW permissions shall be simplified, thereby increasing the mobile coverage.
“Also, we have several hundred tower installation applications. We have decided to grant permissions to maximum in the coming 15 days to one month. We will identify government premises for the purpose, so that there is no question of obtaining any other NOC for the same,” he said.
Sawant said once towers are installed, the connectivity issue will be resolved to a great extent.
The recently conducted State Legislative Assembly witnessed a heated debate over lack of network connectivity, a major hurdle in way of online classes for the students, in the current pandemic.
The Chief Minister had informed the House that nearly 200-250 mobile tower applications are pending for clearance.
The government had also said that a survey is being carried out to identify and fix the faults related to the network connectivity.
