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- The Department of Telecom(DoT) and the Indian Council for Research on International Economic Relations(ICRIER) has signed an MoU to develop a Broadband Readiness Index(BRI) for Indian States and UT.
- This index was recommended by the National Digital Communication Policy (NDCP),2018.It had said that a BRI for States and UTs should be developed to attract investments and address Right of Way(RoW) challenges across India.
- The first BRI estimate will be made in 2019 and subsequently every year until 2022.
- The index will access the states digital readiness both on the demand and supply parameters that would also spur competitiveness among them and create new opportunities in the wireless infrastructure space.
- The index would also create a collaborative institutional mechanism between the Centre,states and local bodies and other stakeholders.
- The index will consists of two parts.The first part will focus on infrastructure development based on the measurement of nine parameters including availability of state policy on right of way and towers,adoption of national building code,percentage of mobile towers connected with fibre among others.
- The second part will consist of demand side parameters such as percentage of households using computers with an internet connection, internet users as a percentage of the population, smart phones density among others.
