The department of telecom (DoT) has told the Prime Minister’s Office (PMO) that it would be impossible to meet the March 2016 deadline set by Prime Minister Narendra Modi for complete rollout of the national optic fibre network (NOFN).
In a meeting with the PMO on NOFN held on November 18, the department was emphatic in its argument as it said that for the project to be completed in the timeline marked by Modi, “it would require the current capacities to be up-scaled by over 30-40 times”.
Bharat Sanchar Nigam Ltd (BSNL), Bharat Broadband Networks Ltd (BBNL) and others agencies, which have been entrusted the task of laying out the optical fibre network (OFN) to connect over 2.5 lakh villages/gram panchayats (GPs), have made it amply clear to the PMO that it would be difficult to roll out the plan by March 2016. They expect to complete the project by December 2016, which is nine months later than PM’s deadline.
Going by the argument in the note, even the December 2016 deadline for laying the 6-lakh km NOFN is highly ambitious.
“The average rate of laying, even by private sector, with best in class execution capacities has not exceeded 50,000 km per year,” states the note presented by the DoT to the PMO.
If you take that speed of execution, then 6-lakh km NOFN will take at least 12 years.
At the same time, the DoT has also proposed that “since the pace of work by the public sector units (PSUs) in Phase I has been inordinately slow, the government should explore alternate options for fast tracking the projects”.
The constraints listed by it for the current delay are limited production capacities of materials and inter-agency coordination and logistical challenges in managing projects across 2.5 lakh locations with multiple stakeholders.
The department has expressed concerns over multi-PSU led implementation strategy, which leads to speed, efficiencies and governance problems. It also points out that PSU procurement processes were the key bottleneck in the whole project.
The Rs 21,000 crore NOFN project, which aims to connect 2.5 lakh villages through broadband, was approved by the Cabinet in October 2011. It is envisaged as the infrastructural centerpiece for the government’s Digital India dream.
Under the project, three pilot projects in Rajasthan (Arain), Andhra Pradesh (Parwada) and Tripura (Panisagar) have been completed with the help of department of IT to validate the technology architecture and deployment model.
Despite this, the project is lagging in achieving targets set by the government in Phase I, which has to be completed by March 2015 and will connect 50,000 villages. The Phase II and III, to be completed by March 2016 and December 2016, respectively, will connect another two lakh villages through a broadband network.
Telecom experts believe if the government puts its might behind the project then it can be completed in six months.
“In our view, it is essential to withdraw the projects from PGCIL and RailTel. Even BSNL should be asked not to resort to energising their factories for making ducts. This will yield no result. After ensuring timely delivery of material, the focus should be on rollouts with daily monitoring at the GP level. For this, a dedicated call centre should be established,” said a telecom expert.
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