Lastly, bandwidth shortage has derailed state governments’ e-governance initiatives, restricting them to just the major cities. This has shrunk citizens’ access to data relating to property, land records, birth and death registers, utility bills, etc. Take the case of B.S. Shekhawat, a villager from the interiors of Jaisalmer district bordering Pakistan, who spent a day travelling to Jaipur. All for a sheet of paper that would be proof of the transfer of a piece of land he recently bought. Logically, visiting the local panchayat should have been all that would have been necessary. But once the tehsildar told him he would not be able to give him the certificate, Shekhawat trudged all the way to Jaipur. He is but one example of the hundreds of people who travel long distances just to access data that should be available in the neighbourhood.

Poor Infrastructure, Starved Market
Ironically, India’s optic fibre capacity — the pipes that deliver broadband — far exceeds current usage. At least 40 per cent of the 700,000-km optic fibre laid has not been operationalised by telecom companies, according to Trai. Why? Ask around for answers and you are likely to be thrown into a quagmire of questions.

Nearly all telecom companies, including India’s largest service providers Bharti Airtel, Reliance Communications, Hutchison Essar, Tata Teleservices and Idea Cellular, have shied away from investing in ramping up their broadband infrastructure. Their combined total of 200,000 km of optic fibre is woefully insufficient to address the needs of the country.

While Reliance has laid the most — 100,000 km — optic fibre, the largest mobile company Bharti Airtel has just 40,000 km. Others have less than 10,000 km each. They continue to drag their feet in reaching the optic fibre to the customer and their offerings remain limited to a handful of geographical pockets in and around the top dozen cities. Instead, their investments and management are largely focused on the highly profitable mobile business.