NE to get Rs 15,000 crore for improving telecom connectivity
Source: The Sangai Express / Economic Times

Guwahati, January 16 2018: North East India will witness investment close to Rs 15,000 crore for improving the telecom connectivity in eight States of North East India.

India's frontier State Arunachal Pradesh which shares border with China will get over 2817 mobile towers.

Union Minister of State for Communications, Manoj Sinha who was in Guwahati on Tuesday to participate in a conference to review the implementation of BharatNet and other major telecom projects in the North Eastern Region said that last year Cabinet approved a modified strategy to implement the Phase-II through State-led and private sector models.

The conference was attended by Arunachal Pradesh Chief Minister Pema Khandu.

He said that given the strategic importance of the North East, as well as the fact that there are a number of areas which are in remote and hilly locations with poor connectivity, Telecom Commission in its meeting this month has approved a comprehensive strategy to implement BharatNet in North East Region (NER).

"Under this strategy 4240 Gram Panchayats (GPs) in the North-East are to be connected by broadband by satellite connectivity by December 2018."Under this strategy 4240 Gram Panchayats (GPs) in the North East are to be connected by broadband by satellite connectivity by December 2018.The estimated cost of the satellite connectivity to 4240 GPs is Rs 733 crore." Sinha also explained that under Comprehensive Telecom Development Project for North East eastern region 66 towers are to be setup to provide connectivity to 8621 villages and along the National Highway at a cost of Rs 5336 Crore.

The Minister detailed MOU was signed between BSNL and Universal Service Obligation Fund (USO) to set up 2817 mobile towers by BSNL in Arunachal Pradesh and two districts of Assam while the work of setting up of 2004 towers in six States has been initiated by Bharti AirtelBSE -1.43 % in December 2017, which is to be completed in 18 months Sinha added that the Government has achieved a significant milestone under BharatNet by connecting over one lakh GPs across the country with high speed optical fibre.

In the eight States of North East India there are 12017 GPs, out of these 7338 GPs were taken up in Phase 1 and it is only 2240 GPs that are Service Ready.

The progress of the BharatNet project has been slow in region due to capacity of agencies implementing the project, various developmental fee expansion of National Highways by National Highway Authority of India, hilly terrain, remote & inaccessible areas, and law and order related issues.

Aruna Sundararajan.

Secretary Department of Telecommunications (DOT) informed that the total planned cost of all the USOF projects is Rs.10,749 crore for North Last States which is about I/8th of the total investment planned by the DOT , which is likely to be enhanced to Rs 15000 Crore for North Eastern region soon She informed the plan for 100 percent teledensity by 2020, expansion of mobile connectivity - erection of 6994 mobile towers by June 2019, last mile connectivity through BharatNet in all the GPs by December 2018 including Satellite Connectivity in the difficult and inaccessible GPs.

Network for Spectrum (NFS) project for providing Optical fibre connectivity for the defence forces in border areas and Wi-Fi project to provide internet connectivity to the general rural public by December 20!8.Sinha dedicated the Asthamangal Project implemented by BSNL.

Under this project, alternate bandwidth of 810 gigabytes per second (Gbps) at a cost of about Rs.35 crore has been provided by BSNL using reliable connectivity through Optical Power Ground Wire (OPGW) of Power Grid Corporation of IndiaBSE - 18% (PGCIL) for all State headquarters and other important locations of North East Region.

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