Senior YSR Congress party leader from Vijayawada Dr Punuru Gowtham Reddy was on Tuesday appointed chairman of Andhra Pradesh State FiberNet Limited (APSFL), a state-government undertaking.
Orders to this effect (GO Ms No. 1) was issued by Karikala Valaven, special chief secretary of Infrastructure and Investment Corporation department. The terms and conditions of the appointment will be given separately.
Basically, a trade union leader of the party, Gowtham Reddy, who contested on YSRC ticket from Vijayawada (Central) constituency in 2014 and lost to Bonda Umamaheshwar Rao, was later suspended from the party for allegedly making derogatory comments against prominent Kapu leader late Vangaveeti Mohan Ranga.
But somehow the suspension was revoked and he used to take part in the television debates to air the party views. He was also served show-cause notice by party president Jagan Mohan Reddy again for making certain statements hurting the sentiments of Muslims. But he got the reprieve then, too.
Now, he got the plum post as the chairman of APSFL, APSFL, which was started in October 2015 by the previous Telugu Desam Party regime led by N Chandrababu Naidu.
The project was aimed at providing affordable end-to-end broadband, wifi connection, internet facility, cable television, and phone connectivity in the state. It was formally inaugurated by President of India Ramnath Kovind at Amaravati in 2017.
APFSL, which has a partnership with Cisco Systems, was planning to provide 15 mbps connections to 1.3 crore households and 100 mbps connections to 1 gbps connections to corporate houses.
In the past three years, APSFL has provided connectivity to around 10 lakh households spread across 660 mandals and 6,300 villages in the state. Presently, it is targeting to provide connectivity to 50 lakh households and connect all government offices in next 2-3 years.
The Jagan government smelt a big scam in this APSFL project and ordered an inquiry into it, stating that Vemuru Hari Krishna Prasad, the technical advisor to Naidu, had supplied software to the project at high rates. The government is now seeking a CBI inquiry into it.
