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F i l l i p t o G r o w t hS tate rides on strong telecom infras tructure

J a id e ep G h osh, E x ec u tiv e D ir ec to r, a nd S oh ag S ark ar, S en io r Consul tan t, K PMG A d vis or y S er vic es

G ujarat i a coastal state rich in crafts,history and natural beauty. Besides, it isone of the most industrialised states inIndia with 38 per cent of GDP contributed bythe secondary sector.

According to the Department of I ndus-trial Policy and Promotion under theM inistry of C ommerce and Indu try, Cujaratattracted 230 million of foreign directinvestment (FDI ) during A pril-A ugu t 2010.It i ranked the 13th most attractive de tina-tion in India for FDI .I n fr a s tr u c tu re g iv in g t h e m u c h -n e ed e d v ib ra n cyt o G u ja r a tMuch of the uccess in Gujarat can be attributedto a robust statewide infrastrucrure: Electricity: A power-sufficient state with H

hour electricity in urban and rural area. Ithas an installed capacity of 11,636 MW(October 2009) and a per capita consump-tion of 1,446 units of electricity.

Transport: Excellent road and rail network.The state has one international and 12domestic airports and one major port atK andla and 41 non-major ones.

Water: The Sardar Sarovar armada RiverL inkage Project proposes to create continu-ous water upply throughout the state.

Gas: The only Indian tate with a statewideintegrated gas grid network of over 2,200 km.

Telecommunications: One of the few stateswith high teledensity and excellent broad-band connectivity right up to the village level.T ata M otors moving to Gujarat for it

I ano project has also made a difference tothe investment entiment in I ndia. Currently,major business houses like Reliance Indu -tries, the Aditya Birla Group, Essar andAdani, and global conglomerates such asM atsushita, ABB, Shell and Bombardier have

90 I Gujarat Infrastructure I October-December2010

set up base in the tate.T e l ec o m i n fr a s tr u c tu r eTelecom and IT have played a key role inincreasing work ef fi ciency and enhancing pub-lic accessibility. Gujarat ha focu ed on growthand development of new technologies.Telephony (w ir elin e a nd w ir ele ss )Gujarat is a C ategory telecom circle. Overthe past year, it has witne sed a growth of 26per cent in terms of wireline and w ireless ub-scribers with wireless alone clocking a growthof 28 per cent.

There are eight telecom operators cur-rently operational in the Gujarat circleincluding incumbent - Bharti A irtel,Reliance Communication (RCOM ), V oda-fone E ssar, Bharat Sanchar igam L imited(B NL ), Idea Cellular and Tata TeleservicesL imited (IT L ) - as well a new players suchas Uninor and V ideocon M obile ervices).Within the mobile egment, RCOM , TTSLand B S. are operating in both GSM andCDMA technologie .

BS [l, leads the wireline egrnent with amarket hare of 9 per cent (5.2 million sub-scribers) while V odafone E ssar is the overallmarket leader wi th a 39 per cent (11.5 millionsubscribers) market share.

The overall teledensity in Gujarat is

62.84. The urban market is more saturated(with a teledensity of 102.25) than the ruralmarket (teledensity of 36.44). The mobi lesegment is the biggest contributor to teleden-sity (as is the ca e across India); the segmentwitnessed an average subscriber addition of0.9 million sub cribers per month during theperiod April-June 2010.O FC n etw or kGujarat had the largest optical fibre cable(OFC) network of more than 69,845 km inthe country a of 2008, according to TRA I.The tate-owned wide area network is thelarge tIP-based information and communi-cation technology (lCT) network in the A sia-Pacifi c region and the second largest in theworld, connecting 26 districts and 225 talukasthrough 12,000 nodes.Internet a nd b roa dba ndGujarat ranks eighth in terms of the number ofinternet/broadband connections, with 0.93million subscribers and all its villages are con-nected via broadband internet3G and B WA serv icesIn early 2010 Idea Cellular, V odafone andTAT. DOCOMO bagged 3G spectrum forGujarat at an auction price of Rs 10.76 bil -lion. Infotel Broadband (now owned byReliance Industries) and Tikona won broad-band wireless access (BW ) spectrum for Rs6.13 billion. BSNL was awarded 3G andBWA spectrum prior to the spectrum auctionfor private operators.Satel l i teThe Bha karacharya Institute for SpaceApplications and Geoinformatics has satell itecommunication facilities with dedicated band-

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In te rn et p en etra tio n p ro pe llin g th e g rowth o f e -c omme rc e. Over 194,000 teachers across 4,000iving centres participated in a training pro-me conducted by the institute. With better penetration of internet and broadband services, Gu ja ra t has emerged as one o f the top

five online shopp ing markets in the country. According to e8ay India, the sta te ranked fourth a fterMaharashtra, De lh i and Tamil Nadu as per the census conducte d by the c ompany in 2010. Duringthe cens us in 2009, Gujarat was ranked seventh. Ahmedabad was ranked seventh among the e-com-merce hubs in the country as per the e8ay census. A lso , two rural towns of Gujarat - SajiyavadarandAdala - figu re among the top five rura l hubs witnessing active buying and se lling trends on e8ay.

di trict headquarters are provided withback-up support of transportable VSATals.r n a n ce p ro je c tsstate has been increasingly using IC T to

r citizen-based services according to conve-nce of location with the aim of improvingh, making services more tran parent anducing the response time as well as costs.arat is the fi rst state in the country to havede e-governance functional in all its munici-tie and municipal corporation.

panchayats and 6 000 citizen common servicecentres as a part of the eGram Connectivi tyProject. Some of the features of the e-Gramproject are videoconferencing facilities; issuingdocuments, certificates and application formsfor variou development and welfare schemes;VSAT-based broadband connectivity; free-of-cost communication between pn ll chaynts; com-mon service facilitie ; advantages of internet andcyber connectivity uch as electrici ty and tele-phone bills, visa and e-postal services throughthe e-Gram project website.

e-CityA project to facili tate better performance i.nthedelivery of municipal services such as birth anddeath registration, building plan, primary healthand education, city cleanline s, water supply,ewage, road, rreet tights and garden throughe-governance for the citizens of the city.S tate D ata C entreA state data centre has been er up atGandhinagar. This project, under the centralgovernment's ational e-Governance Plan, isidentified as one of the core and critical infra-structure components needed to con olidateand ho t essential applications for e-gover-nance services.

ja ra t Sta te W ide A re a N etw ork (G SW AN )nnects seven districts on 8 M bps, 18 on 4bps and one on 2 Mbps to the state centret Gandhinagar using leased circuits providedBSNL, RCOM and TTSL .nnects 225 talukas to 26 district head-arters on 2 M bps leased circuits.erconnects more than 3,600 district- andluka-level tate government office .average of 70 departmental offices at dis-

ict locations and fiveoffices at taluka loca-ions have been connected to GSw.

litates uninterrupted IP -based video-ng between various state govern-

nt offices.

e-DharaT he e-Dhara project envisions the completecomputerisation ofland record across the state.

C o n c l u s i o nGujarat i a model for the economic progressof developing countries. Telecom infrastruc-ture is widely recognised as a catalyst for theeconomic and social development of a coun-try. Gujarat presents a prospective telecomland cape with high teledensiry and excellentbroadband connectivity right up to the villagelevel. Competition has increased with theentry of new players into the market along

with the launch of new technolo-gie (3G and BWA ), and the futurelooks promising as the gapbetween urban and rural teledensi-ty narrows.

A long with well-developedphysical infrastructure, good powersupply, and port, gas and waterinfrastructure, the telecom infra-structure and upbeat e-governanceinitiative are here to provide themuch-needed fill ip to the "new age"in Gujarat .

H ea lth M an ag em e nt In fo rm a tio n S ys te m(HMIS)

project conceptual i ed by the Departmentof Health and F amily Welfare to ensure qual-ity health care through IT application. Theproject also aims to provide standard clinicaland di agno ti c tools, hospital managementtools and i ntegration of management infor-mation at the state level so as to ensure onlinereview and monitoring.in e S ta te W id e A tte ntio n o n G rie va nc es

gh App li ca ti on o f T echno lo g y

state ha made use of video-ferencing facilities to addressgrievances of the common man.chi ef minister, along with all

department heads and the di -r representatives, provide

diate solutions to the com-n man online.

W l re li n e a n d w i r e le s s s u b s c r i b e rs (m i l l i on )40_ Wireline _ Wireless35

3025201510

a m - V is hv ag ra mproject connects 13,716 gram

September 2009 March 2010 J une 2010ecember 2009

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