Centre to discuss National Optical Fibre Project with states on Friday

The Centre will discuss with the states on May 29 the national optical fibre network project as it seeks their greater participation in the ambitious plan that aims to provide broadband connectivity to all panchayats. Telecom Minister Ravi Shankar Prasad has called “a meeting of IT ministers and secretaries of all the states on May 29 to discuss the national optical fibre network (NOFN) project”, a source in the Department of Telecom said. Prasad had earlier said that the government expects more participation of the states in the project as it was important in the success of Digital India initiative. “We expect more participation of states, their involvement is required because Digital India is such a programme, that is party and ideology neutral and whatever broadband architecture will come, it will be useful for states as well as Centre,” he had said. Prime Minister Narendra Modi on May 11 had reviewed the project and also discussed a report submitted by former IT Secretary J Satyanarayana-led committee to fast-track much delayed NOFN. Modi had stressed on increasing participation of the states in the project, which is likely to be renamed BharatNet with an outlay of about Rs. 72,778 crores, sources said. The Department of Telecom (DoT) had given a presentation to Modi on revamping the project. The Satyanarayana-led committee had recommended involvement of private sector for the project, increased role of state governments, use of satellites and radiowaves for providing connectivity to certain areas, among others. The project was conceived in 2011 and the deadline to connect all panchayats with broadband was 2013-end. But later the timeline was deferred to September 2015 by the then UPA government. The committee had also proposed to rename the project as BharatNet, which is to be completed by December 2017 at an estimated cost of Rs. 72,778 crores. By the end of March 2015, only 20,000 village panchayats got broadband connectivity whereas the target was to connect 50,000 village panchayats. The BJP-led government re-examined status and set a target to complete roll out in 50,000 village panchayats by March 31, 2015, another 1 lakh by March 2016 and the rest by end of 2016. PTI