Be it the President of India or the Governor of RBI, Odisha has maximum number of representatives at the national level. The State is experiencing ‘Acche Din’ (good times) at present, Union Home Minister Amit Shah had said at a programme in Cuttack during his last visit to the State.
But if one takes the 5G launch in the country announced by the Union Communication Minister recently into account, it is not so Acche Din for Odisha. None of Odisha's cities was among the 13 places where 5G service would be launched from October. ..
Even though Union IT, Communication and Electronics Minister Ashwini Vaishnaw represents Odisha in the Rajya Sabha and the Union Cabinet even the ‘No 1 Smart City’ and State capital Bhubaneswar does not figure in the cities where the 5G service would be launched.
Gurugram, Bengaluru, Kolkata, Mumbai, Chandigarh, Delhi, Jamnagar, Ahmedabad, Chennai, Hyderabad, Lucknow, Pune and Gandhinagar are the cities in which the service would be launched.
Interestingly, Gujarat has three cities, Ahmedabad, Jamnagar and Gandhinagar where the 5G service would be launched.
Some irate sections in Odisha have called this ‘betrayal of the State and demanded Vaishnaw to revise the list and include Bhubaneswar in it.
Leave alone 5G services, poor mobile connectivity till ails Odisha. More than 6,000 villages still have no mobile connectivity. During the Covid pandemic the poor and backward class students suffered the most because of network problems for attending online classes.
However, Chief Minister Naveen Patnaik has been raising the issue of poor digital connectivity in the State at various national forums.
Patnaik has repeatedly brought to the attention of Prime Minister Narendra Modi, Home Minister Amit Shah and successive Telecom Ministers regarding Odisha’s concerns on lack of mobile connectivity particularly in the remote and Leftwing extremist affected (LWE) areas and how that is hampering the development process.