Economic Survey 2025: More than 4 Lakh 5G BTS Installed To Fuel India’s Digital Connectivity

Economic Survey 2025: More than 4 Lakh 5G BTS Installed To Fuel India’s Digital Connectivity

SUMMARY

The survey said that more than 4.6 Lakh 5G Base Transceiver Stations (BTSs) have been installed across the country

Till October 2024, the government launched 5G services in all states and union territories

It further claimed that out of 783 districts in the country, 779 have 5G services

Pushing India’s digital connectivity, more than 4.6 Lakh 5G Base Transceiver Stations (BTSs) have been installed across the country, according to the Economic Survey 2024-25 tabled by the union finance minister Nirmala Sitharaman in the Parliament today (January 31).

Till October 2024, the government launched 5G services in all states and union territories, the survey said

It further claimed that out of 783 districts in the country, 779 have 5G services.

The central government also renamed Universal Service Obligation Fund to Digital Bharat Nidhi in August 2024. Under this initiative, the government aimed to support telecom services and subsidising mobile services in rural and remote areas. As per the survey, 6.92 Lakh KM of Optical Fibre Cable (OFC) were laid till December 2024.

Additionally, by this period, more than 7K sites covering 10,706 villages were commissioned under Union Cabinet’s project 2022, which aimed at providing 4G mobile services to 24,680 uncovered villages in remote areas and upgrade 6,279 villages, which were then using 2G/3G networks.

As a part of Border Villages Scheme, more than 290 4G towers were installed in 319 villages.

Elaborating on the digital connectivity, the survey said that MeghRaj, the GI Cloud initiative is a key component of India’s IT strategy. As of November 2024, the National Informatics Centre was supporting 1,917 applications on its cloud. Additionally, the government selected 23 public and private cloud service providers.

Furthermore, the data centre market in India is expected to grow to $11.6 Bn by 2032, from being $4.5 Bn in 2023.

It is pertinent to note that earlier this month, Reliance Jio launched its new “5.5G” network in India. During the launch event, Jio demonstrated the new network’s capabilities and achieved speeds exceeding 1,014 Mbps.

 

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