Tech Trend 247

Call it a last minute election stunt, or a pure marketing scheme, but several major forces in India have lately voluntarily assigned themselves with the task of distributing free mobile connectivity and smartphones to people. 

We recently saw the Chief Minister of India’s largest state Uttar Pradesh made a promise to give unprivileged citizens in his state a free smartphone. Now it’s the turn of Goa’s Chief Minister Laxmikant Parsekar, who has announced that his BJP-led government will give youths between the age of 18 and 38 a mobile connection. The connection will come with 1GB of free 3G or LTE data, and 100 minutes of voice calls. 

The scheme, dubbed “Digital Goa Plan,” is expected to launch in November. To fulfill this, Parsekar said his government will invite bids for providing connections in the state soon. 

Parsekar's announcement comes a week after his remarks on Goa trailing in the IT sector. He signed a memorandum of understanding this month with Telangana, another Southern Indian state, to get training for developments in IT field. The state government plans to set up an IT park and an electronic city.

Parsekar’s growing push to improve IT infrastructure is also coincidentally happening ahead of Legislative Election in the state, which is scheduled for early 2017. If that isn't a coincident, Parsekar will join the ranks of several other politicians in India who are increasingly trying to lure voters with free connectivity, laptops, smartphones and other gadgetry.

Parsekar's offering might not feel as enticing as unlimited calls and 4GB of LTE data that people can get with a Jio connection, though. Earlier this month, India's largest industrial house Reliance Industries Limited (RIL) announced the commercial launch of its new LTE network Jio. In addition to free data and calls through the waning part of the year, RIL is also offering access to its suite of content services that include live TV streaming, movies on demand and a music store. 

Naturally, people are lining up outside stores for a Jio SIM card, but only to be disappointed with shortage of supply. For those who have managed to snag one, they are now complaining about slow data access and high call drop rates. 

And who can forget Mark Zuckerberg's Free Basics initiative that wanted everyone to have free Facebook access in the garb of free internet to every Indian. The plan was banned by Indian government.

But perhaps, nobody can top the blazing feats that Ringing Bells set earlier this year. A company from Northern India that nobody had heard of unveiled the Freedom 251 smartphone in February. The entry-level phone carried a price tag of Rs 251 ($4). Though the company has largely failed to deliver on its promise of shipping millions of these phones, according to its own claims, at least 200,000 people in India have been able to purchase the phone that costs less than a movie ticket. Nonetheless to say, several other companies are now making similar promises, and they will likely fail too. But that's okay. 

They might not help bring connectivity to all, and the data speeds might not be as good as India's richest man will have you believe, but these efforts are still helping an increasingly growing population of the country get on board with the mobile revolution. India may not have gotten a memo about the PC revolution, but these efforts — however substandard — have played an instrumental role in making India world's fastest growing smartphone market, and one of the largest internet connected population.