Tamil Nadu FibreNet Corporation Ltd on Wednesday entered into a Master Service Agreement with Noida-based Polycab India Ltd for implementation of BharatNet Phase-II in the State at a cost of ₹509 crore.
BharatNet Phase-II Project envisages providing all the 12,525 Gram Panchayats in the State with high-speed bandwidth using Optical Fibre Cable. The Centre has approved the project at an estimated cost of ₹1,815 crore. The minimum scalable bandwidth will be 1 Gbps.
The implementation of the project has been divided into four packages and one System Integrator for each package and Third Party Agency (TPA) has been selected. In October last year, the MSA was executed with system integrators L&T Ltd, ITI Ltd and BECIL (TPA) to implement BharatNet Phase-II project in Tamil Nadu.
L&T is handling the project in Nagapattinum, Thanjavur, Tiruvarur, Pudukottai, Namakkal, Karur, Coimbatore, Tiruppur, Tiruchirapalli, Mayiladurai and ITI in in Kanniyakumari, Madurai, Ramanathapuram, Theni, Thoothukudi, Tirunelveli, Virudhunagar, Tenkasi, Dindigul, Sivagangai.
Polycab will handle Gram Panchayats in Chengalpattu, Kanchipuram, Tiruvannamalai, Tiruvallur, Vellore, Krishnagiri, Ranipettai, Tirupati and Chennai districts.
The project will be implemented in all 12,525 Gram Panchayats on disposal of litigation relating to one more package, said IT Minister T Mano Thangaraj after signing of the MSA at the Secretariat.
The BharatNet infrastructure will allow provision of digital services like e-education, telemedicine, triple play services (Telephone, Television & Internet Connection) to the common man at affordable cost. It will also allow government offices, public institutions, schools, colleges and industries to use high-speed bandwidth to deliver citizen centric services at the village level. All the village panchayats will be enabled with secure and reliable broadband services. The project will improve the socio-economic standard of the state by creating jobs and services in rural areas, he told newspersons