The government started its second and final phase of BharatNet project in November2017to provide high-speed broadband in all panchayats by March 2019.
Under this phase, that has an outlay of around Rs34,000 crore, the government aims to connect 1.5 lakh panchayats through 10 lakh kilometres of additional optical fibre and give bandwidth to telecom players at nearly 75 per cent cheaper price for broadband and wifi services in rural areas. Officials have been asked to include and enforce the clause of financial incentive for speedy execution of Phase-2 of the project.
Telecom operators are to provide at least 2 megabits per second speed to rural households.
Connection point or exchange for optical fibre at each panchayat will be provided under the scheme. Thereafter, telecom operators can buy connection or bandwidth from the government to sell the same in rural areas.
Broadband services rates are expected to be low because of intensive competition in the sector and the government is offering bandwidth under the project to telecom operators at 75 percent lower rate than they currently buy it. Telecom operators Reliance Jio, Bharti Airtel, Idea Cellular and Vodafone may provide services under BharatNet.
The telecom ministry has signed agreements with seven states—Maharashtra, Gujarat, Chhattisgarh, Andhra Pradesh, Telangana, Tamil Nadu and Jharkhand—which will roll out the project on their own with partial funding from the central government.
BSNL will roll out optical fibre in eight states in this phase, i.e., Assam, Haryana, Madhya Pradesh, Rajasthan, Uttar Pradesh, West Bengal, Jammu and Kashmir and Sikkim, that were not covered under the first phase of BharatNet.
Power Grid Corporation of India has been awarded contract for three states—Himachal Pradesh, Uttarakhand and Odisha.
The government estimates that the second phase of BharatNet will double the existing optical fibre footprint in the country and generate employment of 10 crore man-days during the rollout of the project. Around Rs4.5 lakh crore value can be added to the national gross domestic product on completion of BharatNet phase 2, based on a study that says that every 10 percent usage of Internet in India drives up GDP by 3.3 percent.
OFC and Wi-Fi
Phase-2 involves laying of Optical Fibre Cable (OFC) over electricity poles, so the participation of states will be important. This is a new element of the BharatNet strategy as the mode of connectivity by aerial OFC has several advantages, including lower cost, speedier implementation, easy maintenance and utilization of existing power line infrastructure. The last mile connectivity to citizens was proposed to be provided creating Wi-Fi hotspots in gram panchayats.
The government will provide support of Rs3,600 crore to telecom operators for rolling out wifi in villages. India at present has 38,000 wifi hotspots. Under BharatNet phase 2, around 6-7 lakh wifi hotspots will be added with 2-5 hotpsots in each panchayats. Some of the wifi hotspots may not be commercially viable initially and so viability gap funding of around Rs3,600 crore is to be provided to telecom operators.
The total wifi rollout cost is estimated to be around Rs10,000 crore. Under BharatNetPhase I, the government has set up 15,000 wifi hotspots of which around 11,000 are in rural areas and the rest in semi-rural.
Phase I
Phase-1 of the project was completed by connecting over one lakh Gram Panchayats (GP) across the country with high speed optical fibre network as per the declared deadline of December 31, 2017. Some 1,03,275 GPs had been connected by laying 2,38,677 km of. OFC. Of these, 75,082 GP locations are ready for broadband services.
About BharatNet
For the deeper digital penetration in rural areas, the Government has taken up BharatNet initiative to link each of the 2.5 lakh Gram Panchayats of India through Broadband optical fibre network. On its completion, BharatNet would facilitate Broadband connectivity for over 600 million rural citizens of the country. This is the largest rural connectivity project of its kind in the world.The project aims to provide affordable broadband services to citizens and institutions in rural and remote areas, in partnership with States and the private sector. It will facilitate the delivery of various e-Services and applications including e-health, e-education, e-governance and e-commerce.Created on the mantra of ‘Create, Collaborate and Conquer’, the project is expected to generate many employment opportunities both direct and indirect in the country.
The entire project is being funded by Universal service Obligation Fund (USOF), which was set up for improving telecom services in rural and remote areas of the country. The total project cost of BharatNet is around Rs45,000 crore, of which Rs11,200 crore have been used for the first phase.
A Centre-state collaborative project, with the States contributing free Rights of Way for establishing the Optical Fibre Network, the project involves a three-phase implementation process:
*The first phase envisages providing one lakh gram panchayats with broadband connectivity by laying underground optic fibre cable (OFC) lines by 2017 end.
*The second phase will provide connectivity to all 2,50,500 gram panchayats in the country using an optimal mix of underground fiber, fiber over power lines, radio and satellite media. It is to be completed by March 2019.
*In the third phase from 2019 to 2023, state-of-the-art, future-proof network, including fibre between districts and blocks, with ring topology to provide redundancy would be created.
As on 31.12.2017, in1,09,926GPs, OFC laying of 2,54,895 km was completed and broadband connectivity provided in 1,01,370 GPs.
After rural exchange rollout in the country when telecom services started, this is the biggest project involving domestically manufactured products for the entire project.