Union minister for communication (independent charge) and junior railway minister Manoj Sinha remains one of the shy and introvert members of the Narendra Modi cabinet. But the three-time Ghazipur MP and an IIT-BHU alumnus is as much ecstatic about sharing joys of his scam-less and successful stint as he is humble on his kurta-dhoti outfit while brushing shoulders with MNC honchos. In a free-wheeling interview with Rohan Dua, he proudly shares how mobile data cost has come down and railway ministry is working to spruce up infrastructure across the country. Excerpts...
Your portfolios — railways and telecommunication — had become synonymous with UPA 2 scams.
What difference have you brought about?
It’s not just these two ministries. I can proudly say we have have run a scam-free government over the past four years under PM Narendra Modi — whether its spectrum, licensing, processing, mergers and acquisitions (Idea-Vodafone). The objective was transparent auctions of spectrum and bridge digital divide.
How did it help both a consumer and corporate houses?
In June 2014, data cost was Rs 269 per GB. By 2018, we brought it down to just Rs 19. Similarly, call tariff has shrunk to barely 17 paisa from 51 paisa. Now the how part. We have spent Rs 60,000 crore between 2014 till now on telecom infrastructure as compared to a paltry Rs 9,900 crore spent by UPA 2. We have doubled mobile base transceiver stations from 7.9 lakh to 18 lakh and optical fibre cable (OFC) from 7 lakh km to 14 lakh km.
Varanasi, Rae Bareli, Amethi are key constituencies for 2019. How did you differentiate in railway projects?
Let me tell you I have made no discrimination. In fact, if PM Modi ensured mobility at Varanasi, Manduadih, Mughalsarai and Ayodhya, and Prayag Ghat among 11 stations then we also sanctioned Rs 358 crore for doubling of track between Rae Bareli and Amethi. Why didn’t Congress sanction this? Not just that, we also ordered doubling of tracks in Sonia Gandhi’s constituency as well as in a smaller station as Utretia for Rs 298 crore. We are bringing 102 km of railway lines every year as compared to 13 km in UPA 2 at an investment of Rs 5,278 crore every year.
How positive are you on 5G? Any concerns on difficult terrains in India?
We missed the 3G and 4G buses, but 5G is a bus we cannot afford to miss. A high-level forum has been set up and a 5G test bed is being established through budgetary support. The testing phase just ended at IIT Delhi and Chennai. On connectivity front, we have initiated Rs 10,800-crore projects in the northeast and set up 2,335 mobile towers in Left wing extremism-affected areas in Chhattisgarh, Bihar, UP and Maharashtra. Besides, we also set up submarine cable in Andaman at Rs 2,000 crore.
Samsung set up the world’s biggest park in Noida in UP, bringing praises while steps like change in name of Mughalsarai railway station brought criticism.
UP is the largest state and therefore carries commensurate social, economic, and political importance. We had held a UP Investors’ Summit in February this year and showed how we are trying to win the trust of investors, which was missing for the past decade or more. At this stage, more than 50% of telecom equipment and components manufacturing units are based out of Noida. More such investments are to follow because our government in UP has full control over law and order and trying to undo the damage of the past government.
If a railway station is linked to a national personality or an event, I do not see why changing a name is a bad thing. We have had names of states and cities being changed in the past as well.
You started as a student leader. Lucknow University and BHU both saw violence recently which comes at a time when BSP and SP have joined hands and traded barbs with BJP over the controversy.
It is the duty of administration in universities to engage all stakeholders. We are not worried about caste-based parties such as SP and BSP. We are as much buoyant about Kumbh and faith of people as about 5G or bio-toilets, Wi-Fi stations and automatic ticket vending machines at railway stations.
Do you intend to tap postal department for states like UP, MP, Rajasthan or Chhattisgarh where Internet may be a concern.
We have earmarked Rs 10,000 crore for 1 million Wi-Fi hotspots that are being set up in rural India under BharatNet project. In a first, we are opening 650 bank branches of postal department to help people transact like private sector banks, with a rider to keep money up to Rs 1 lakh. About 995 ATMs are being opened by the end of this year.
