Government of India has restored the high speed 4G internet services of all the telecommunication companies in the entire Union Territory of Jammu and Kashmir, for the first time after 5 August 2019, when the erstwhile State was divided into the two Union Territories of J&K and Ladakh and its special status, including Article 370, was withdrawn.

It is exactly after 18-month-long suspension that the high speed internet mobile services are being restored in all the 20 districts. In August 2010, after suspension of 12 months, Government had restored these services selectively in the Ganderbal district in Kashmir and the Udhampur district in Jammu, under an instruction in Public Interest Litigation by the Supreme Court of India. It was done on an ‘experimental basis’.

Even after no violation of law was reported by a monitoring committee, some security agencies had reportedly reservations and apprehensions of a law and order situation to be created by Pakistan.

Senior government functionaries, including Lieutenant Governor Manoj Sinha, had lately spoken in favour of restoration of the 4G internet services in view of reports that over 5 lakh students were suffering and failing to take online classes during the Covid-19 pandemic since March 2020.

Principal Secretary Information and the Government spokesperson Rohit Kansal confirmed restoration of the 4G internet services in a tweet on Friday night. Highly placed authoritative sources disclosed to India Narrative that Principal Secretary Home would be issuing the formal order and the services would be restored from midnight on 5 February.

People in general in the entire UT of J&K, particularly the youths and the student community, expressed gratitude to the Government for restoration of the 4G services. Kansal’s tweet evoked a hugely positive response from Netizens. In the 60 minutes, it had 14,000 likes, 2427 retweets and 662 comments, mostly positive.