TRAI has reaffirmed its commitment towards rolling out BharatNet, cautioning that the initiative should not fall into the same obscurity that the National Optical Fiber Network (NOFN) fell into. It had floated a consultation paper on the implementation of the project last month.
The document is open to comments from stakeholders till December 7. After these opinions are taken into consideration, TRAI plans to announce its recommendations next month. The authority’s Chairman RS Sharma, speaking on the sidelines of the Infocom seminar in Kolkata, said BharatNet should not meet the same fate as the NOFN, which did not get successfully executed.
He thinks the NOFN’s failure can be attributed to lack of planning as no work was done to sketch out the program. Sharma feels designing is extremely important for initiatives to thrive, as does aligning the interests of all the stakeholders involved. TRAI is thus trying to make sure these principles are in place before starting the enterprise.
To recall, the NOFN was first introduced by the previous Congress government in 2011, which had allocated about Rs 20000 crore for its rollout. As per PTI, Sharma stated that BharatNet would now cost roughly $70 billion (approx Rs 466782 crore). The TRAI Chairman favors a Build-Own-Operate-Transfer (BOOT) model for its realization.
Also See: TRAI issues paper on BharatNet optical fiber rollout
Under this framework, private companies design, build and handle infrastructure such as highways or power plants. This system is implemented for the initial phase, after which all operations are handed over to the government. The consultation paper issued by TRAI aims to discuss any problems that may arise out of such a scheme.
BharatNet is supposed to provide internet access to all 2.5 lakh panchayats across India through broadband connectivity.