India’s tech capital Bangalore, which has logged a 43 per cent rise in Internet users in the last one year, has, according to the Internet and Mobile Association of India (IMAI), recorded the third highest growth in the country.
According to IMAI, while in 2012 the City saw 2.7 million people logging on to the Net, in 2013, it saw 3.8 million doing so.
However, in terms of user population in absolute numbers, Maximum City Mumbai, with 12 million Internet users in 2013, as against 8.3 million users in 2012, was way ahead of other cities. Kolkata saw a marginal rise with 4.4 million users in 2013 as against 3 million users in 2012.
The absolute number of Internet users in Bangalore is lower than that of Mumbai, Delhi, Kolkata, Chennai and Hyderabad because of the population size in metros. According to IMAI’s Nilotpal Chakravarthi, overall population size is a crucial factor which determines the population of Internet users.
That’s why Bangalore is ranked sixth in absolute number of Internet users. But the growth rate of Internet using population is high and not far behind Mumbai and Kolkata’s growth rates.
Attributing Bangalore’s growth of Internet users to mobile phones, Chakravarthi said mobile Internet is fast becoming the largest population segment in Internet usage all over the country. Mobile phone are used by school and college students and working women, apart from rest of the population. Further, he adds, given that mobile is widespread even among non-elite sections and the volume of mobile purchases going up, the extent of mobile Internet penetration is bound to go up.
An outlay of Rs 22 crore, spread over a period of three years, was set aside by the Jagadish Shettar government to boost Internet density in Bangalore and all districts of Karnataka. Aakash tablets were proposed for government college and SC/ST students who scored above 60 per cent marks.
Aakash was also promised to students with 60 per cent and above in the first-year engineering and science courses in government colleges. The timeframe for implementation is 2016. In three years, it is expected that the Internet would have penetrated government schools and colleges in Bangalore and rest of the State.
