A senior DoT official told DNA that BSNL’s final cost for setting up the optical fibre communication (OFC) network for the defence forces was working out to be eight times the initial estimate.
Defence forces have rejected the proposal of Department of Telecom (DoT) for vacating spectrum for commercial allocation saying the cost of moving to a new band of spectrum was very high.
A senior DoT official told DNA that BSNL’s final cost for setting up the optical fibre communication (OFC) network for the defence forces was working out to be eight times the initial estimate.
“Defence forces are not ready to pay the final estimated cost worked out by BSNL, whose earlier projected cost for moving spectrum to a different band was meagre. Actually, it (BSNL’s initial cost estimation) was done in a hurried manner. The final cost is eight times of what was estimated by BSNL the first time,” said the DoT official.
State-owned BSNL had earlier said the OFC network for the defence sector would cost around `4,000-5,000 crore.
Going by the DoT official, this may have jumped to `32,000-40,000 crore now.
A BSNL official, who spoke on condition of anonymity, however, differed, saying the cost had doubled and not shot up eight times.
Earlier this month, DoT had reportedly proposed to compensate government agencies including defence forces, ministry of space, broadcasting and communication for vacation of spectrum that would be used for commercial purposes. The government was looking to pay these agencies from the Consolidated Fund of India.
The airwaves freed by government agencies would help in meeting the severe shortage of spectrum being faced by the commercial telecom operators.
As per DoT’s recent presentation to the Planning Commission, the telecom sector would require 320 mega hertz (MHz) of spectrum by 2012 and 500 MHz by 2020. This was way short of the available of spectrum of about 287-450 MHz.
It would also generate revenues for the government through an auction.
According to the government executive, a section in BSNL had suggested the defence forces shift to an existing OFC network to trim cost of spectrum vacation. However, the defence forces have struck it down on the ground that spectrum used by it was “strategic” and would compromise the country’s security.
“They (defence forces) do not want to be on the existing OFC network and have requested to dedicated network for strategic and security reasons,” said the DoT official.
The defence forces also did not want any other organisation, other than BSNL, to set up the OFC network for them.
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