Giu village in Himachal Pradesh receives cellphone service for the first time, and PM Modi addresses the locals

Speaking with locals in Giu village in Himachal Pradesh’s Spiti on Thursday, Prime Minister Narendra Modi said that the region has been linked to a cell network for the first time.

During their almost 13-minute phone chat, Modi spoke about his trip to the border area for Diwali and claimed that getting the community connected to the cell network would accelerate the “Digital India” initiative.

The prime minister said that after the electrification project proved successful, the government is now giving priority to connecting every location with communication technology. He added that more than 18,000 villages were without electricity when he took office.

A villager informed him that when they were informed that the region will be linked to the mobile network, they momentarily lost belief in it, and when it eventually occurred, their joy had no limits.

According to him, they had to go for almost eight kilometers in the past to use their phones.

Modi emphasized the ‘Vibrant Village Programme (VVP)’, an initiative of his government to promote development in border areas. He said that previous administrations had abandoned these communities to their destiny.

After putting people’s comfort of living first in his first term, Modi said that he would shift his priority to people’s quality of life in his third, which would greatly help the middle class, the impoverished, and distant areas.

The ‘One District One Product’ initiative would also be very beneficial to the area, he said.