Thursday 20 June 2013

Govt needs Rs 13,645 crore to meet rural broadband target

Indian government will require Rs 13,645 crore to meet its target of rolling out high-speed broadband network to 100,000 gram panchayats by March 2014 as part of its national fibre optic network plan.
The government will dip into the Universal Service Obligation Fund (USOF), which has a little over Rs 21,800 crore left to finance a slew of projects including the National Optic Fibre Network. 

By the end of this year, Bharat Broadband Network Limited, the special purpose vehicle that will implement the nationwide project, aims to cover 10,000 gram panchayats, which will be a small part of the 250,000 panchayats that the government wants to cover by 2015. 
According to an internal telecom department note outlining the progress of optic fibre network, tenders for electronic equipment will be floated by the end of June while BSNL, Power Grid Corporation of India (PGCIL) and Railtel will invite tenders for physical execution of laying optic fibre. The three entities have begun surveying for putting in place the optic fibre network. 
BSNL has completed survey work for 1,69,000 of the 1,80,000 panchayats that fall under its purview. PGCIL and Railtel have been assigned survey work for 35,000 panchayats each. 
Tenders for supplying optic fibre network have been allocated. The national network has been split into six parts and according to media reports Paramount Cables India, Aksh Optic Fibre, Sterlite, Finolex and Sudarshan emerged as the lowest bidders. 
So far, Rs 219 crore has been spent while a budget of Rs 2,500 crore has been allocated for the 2013-14 financial year. 
Till last year, all gram panchayats in Arain block of Ajmer district of Rajasthan, Panisagar block in North Tripura district of Tripura and Paravada block in Vishakhapatnam district in Andhra Pradesh have been provided with 100 Mbps of bandwidth.

Source: http://cablequest.org/news/broadband-and-iptv-news/item/2618-govt-needs-rs-13,645-crore-to-meet-rural-broadband-target.html
Source: http://cablequest.org/news/broadband-and-iptv-news/item/2618-govt-needs-rs-13,645-crore-to-meet-rural-broadband-target.html

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