Indian telecom regulator has sought comments from industry stakeholders for deciding on an implementation model for BharatNet, which can deliver the project within costs and timelines, as the government aims to take broadband to villages of the country under the Digital India plan.
The Telecom Regulatory Authority of India (Trai) has suggested a build-own-operate-transfer (BOOT) model as an alternate, in addition to three proposed models by a DoT committee earlier this year, while issuing the consultation paper Tuesday. The authority has sought views to decide on which of the models would be suitable.
"The objective of this consultation paper is to discuss strategies to find best model for implementation of BharatNet," Trai said, while giving December 7 as the last date for submission of stakeholder comments.
The government had approved the National Optical Fibre Network (NOFN) project of providing 100 Mbps to all gram panchayats, back in 2012 but the project had moved slowly. The project which has now evolved into BharatNet, plans to create a network by 2017 for providing affordable broadband connectivity of 2 Mbps to 20 Mbps to all rural households and institutions. The cost for setting up the massive broadband plan is estimated to be around Rs 74,000 crore.
In the consultation paper, Trai has asked for the challenges, risks and advantages involved in the three models proposed by the telecom department and that of the BOOT model.
The regulator has also asked for eligibility criteria required for the executing agency to avoid conflict of interest, and measures required for avoid monopolistic behaviour of executing agency.
Among other issues, it has also sought views on the funding of the project and in case it is viability gap funding, it has asked for stakeholder views on the method required to determine the maximum value of finding for each state or service area.
The authority has also asked for responses on the measures required that broadband services remain affordable to the public at large and has also asked for suggestions on imposing fiscal incentive on the agency for completing the project in time or disincentive in case of delay.