How A New Telecom Era Ushered In By Modi Government For Northeast India Could Change The Face Of The Region

The state-owned Bharat Sanchar Nigam Ltd (BSNL) has just commissioned an additional international bandwidth for Northeast through Cox’s Bazar in southeast Bangladesh. This will change internet connectivity in the region by reducing network latency (delays in communication over a network) and internet traffic congestion that the Northeast has been suffering from till now.

What this means is that Northeast India will, from now on, enjoy high-speed internet access like the rest of the country. And that will lead to establishment of software parks, high-speed data centres, business process outsourcing (BPO) firms and a boom in e-commerce.

That will provide jobs and boost the region’s economy.

It will also provide a fillip to tourism and other economic activities, including trade with neighbouring countries.

BSNL has taken two bandwidths of ten gigabytes each from the Bangladesh Submarine Cable Company Ltd, a subsidiary of Bangladesh’s department of posts & telecommunications, which is the International Internet Gateway (IIG) operator. This IIG operator operates the submarine cable landing station at Cox’s Bazar seaport.

Till now, the Northeast used to get international internet connectivity through the Mumbai and Chennai IIGs. But the long physical distances between the region and Mumbai and Chennai IIGs meant very slow internet speeds in the region and frequent drops of linkages. Slow internet speeds posed a great hurdle in e-commerce and precluded many business activities.

Soon after coming to power in 2014, Prime Minister Narendra Modi identified slow internet speeds in the Northeast as one of the main hurdles in fast-paced development of the region. “The DoT was tasked with exploring solutions within a very short timeframe, and we found out that getting internet connectivity through the IIG operator in Bangladesh would be viable and economical,” said a former senior bureaucrat of the department who has served under the then minister Manoj Sinha and then Ravi Shankar Prasad.

The DoT entered into technical discussions and negotiations with Bangladesh’s Ministry of Posts & Telecommunication. In June 2015, during his visit to Bangladesh, Modi oversaw the signing of an agreement between BSNL and Bangladesh Submarine Cable Company Ltd for exporting 10 Gbps IP bandwidth to Tripura. Modi, along with Bangladesh premier Sheikh Hasina, jointly inaugurated this programme over a video link in March 2016.

“That arrangement proved to be very successful and ushered in a telecom revolution in Tripura. People of that state got very high-speed internet, something that they could not even dream of earlier. Based on that success, it was decided to obtain two more bandwidths of ten GB each from the IIG operator in Bangladesh,” the officer told Swarajya.

The DoT, he added, is providing the BSNL with an eighty percent subsidy for three years for the two international bandwidths. “Since the high-quality and high-speed internet access that the Northeast will enjoy from now on will boost businesses and commerce, and will allow citizens to access various e-services, the BSNL will not require any subsidy beyond three years and is expected to make profits by providing internet service to the region,” the officer added.

Abhijeet Barooah of the Confederation of Indian Industry’s Northeast Council told Swarajya that the additional international bandwidth for internet connectivity through Bangladesh will result in a huge increase in trade and commerce in the Northeast and facilitate tourism. “Now, this region (the northeast) will emerge as a BPO hub for the entire neighbourhood and Southeast Asia,” he said.

Road, rail and waterways connectivity through Bangladesh:

This high-speed internet service for the Northeast through Bangladesh comes on the heels of other physical connectivity links through the neighbouring country that the Narendra Modi government has facilitated over the past six years.

The Union government under Prime Minister Modi has signed several agreements with Bangladesh for using that country’s rivers to access the Northeast. That has resulted in the development of waterways between the two countries and cargo vessels from Bihar now travel down the Ganga to enter Bangladesh and move upstream to Assam and also to Tripura.

The two countries have identified 8,480 kilometers of navigable waterways in Bangladesh that can be utilised for transportation of cargo from east to northeast India and between Bangladesh, India, Nepal and Bhutan.

Indian Railways is now executing the 12.24 kilometer Agartala (India) to Akhaura (Bangladesh) rail link at a cost of approximately Rs 1,000 crore. This vital rail link will not only facilitate easier, cheaper and faster movement of goods through Bangladesh to the landlocked Northeast, but also help in export of goods from Northeast through the Chittagong seaport in Bangladesh.

This rail link will also result in a drastic reduction in travel time between Agartala and Kolkata. At present, a train from Tripura to Kolkata takes a very circuitous route (1613 kilometers) through Assam and North Bengal and takes over 38 hours. The commissioning of the Agartala-Akhaura rail link by this year-end will allow passengers from Tripura to travel directly through Bangladesh to Kolkata (a distance of 514 kilometers) in under 16 hours.

Prime Ministers Modi and Sheikh Hasina jointly inaugurated a 1.9 kilometer bridge over the Feni river that connects Sabroom in south Tripura to Ramgarh in Bangladesh. Sabroom is 72 kilometers by road from Chittagong port. The bridge, which will become operational soon, will allow easy access for the Northeastern states to the Chittagong seaport and boost exports and imports.

Prime Minister Modi has also taken a personal interest in finalising protocols for movement of passenger traffic from Bengal to Northeast through Bangladesh.

All these connectivity, including e-connectivity, projects will boost the economy of Northeast India and usher in a new era of prosperity in the region.