<div><em>Telecom operators cannot run from their responsibilities like laying the infrastructure of fibre optics across the country, says Ravi Shankar Prasad. <strong>Haider Ali Khan </strong>reports</em><br><br>While there is a debate going on in the country regarding the call drop issue, Minister of Communication and Information Technology, Ravi Shankar Prasad has asked the telcos to invest and reinforce their system to meet the ever increasing tele-density and put to an end the issue of call drop.</div><div> </div><div>At the second Businessworld Digital India event, Prasad urged telecom operators to optimise and re-look into the management of spectrum that they were allotted to meet and comply with growing numbers of mobile subscribers across India.</div><div> </div><div>He also said, “Government is doing its best and what it is supposed to do to end this problem. Prime Minister Narendra Modi is also keeping a close watch into the matter of call drop and he himself wants it to get addressed as soon as possible.”</div><div> </div><div>He said that the telecom operators cannot run from their responsibilities like laying the infrastructure of fibre optics across the country. They cannot make it a profit making source.</div><div> </div><div>He told that India had a 980 million mobile subscriber base, second only to US. 300 million of these mobile subscribers are internet users. And Bharat Net which was earlier known as National Optical Fibre Network (NOFN) is continuously laying the fibre network across the country. It has a goal of laying around 3 lakh kilometres across India soon.</div><div> </div><div>He also said that while the Atal Bihari Vajpayee government is known for laying the Highway projects in India like Golden Quadrilateral, the Narendra Modi government will be known for its initiatives like ‘Digital India’, ‘Make in India’ and ‘Skill India’.</div>
