Ailing BSNL Loses Mobile Service Project in Arunachal, Assam

Guwahati, July 25, 2019:

The Bharat Sanchar Nigam Limited (BSNL) has finally lost the mandate for rolling out a mobile service project in Arunachal Pradesh and two districts of Assam on the recommendation made by an inter-ministerial panel headed by Niti Ayog CEO Amitabh Kant.

The project was funded through the Universal Services Obligation Fund (USOF). This was formed by the Centre to help fund projects in rural areas with an expenditure of Rs 1,460 crore.

The panel has recommended deployment of 4G services in both the states under the project. But BSNL demanded spectrum for 4G services from the government which its request is yet to be approved.

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Telecom Secretary Aruna Sundararajan said, “That committee apart from CEO Niti Ayog has secretaries from Meity, Department of Economic Affairs.” He added that the committee recommended going for 4G because digital connectivity is going to be very important in the future. USOF will be coming out with competitive tender to select a service provider there.

It is to be mentioned that the Union Cabinet had approved mobile network connectivity in northeastern states in four packages which included one part given to state-run BSNL for rolling out 2,817 mobile towers on a nomination in Arunachal Pradesh and two districts of Assam, with a total outlay of Rs 1,460 crore.

Telecom Secretary mentioned that the package was given to BSNL on nomination basis. There has been very little progress on this tender because of, one, there has been large number of litigations and after that the terrain has also been difficult so survey etc has taken a long time.

A committee was constituted under the chairmanship of CEO Niti Ayog to look at this whole project to see how to ensure good quality connectivity particularly in these areas which are strategically important for the country as mentioned by Aruna Sundararajan.

The tender was allocated to BSNL in 2016 after none of the companies placed their bid for the project.

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