Financial Daily from THE HINDU group of publications
Tuesday, Mar 15, 2005
Financial Daily from THE HINDU group of publications Tuesday, Mar 15, 2005 |
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Info-Tech
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Broadband Government - E-Governance AP Broadband project caught in legal, regulatory tangle Our Bureau
Hyderabad , March 14 THE Rs 400-crore Andhra Pradesh broadband project that seeks to provide connectivity up to the rural level in the State to reach out e-governance applications at people's doorsteps is in a jam. On one hand the Andhra Pradesh High Court has ordered status quo with regard to award of contract to a private consortium, Aksh Broadband Ltd, and on the other, the Department of Telecom, the licensing authority, has sent a note, early this year, to the State raising regulatory issues. When contacted, the State Government officials maintain that all the necessary regulatory issues have been complied with and refused to comment further on the matter stating that it was sub-judice. The award of the project to the private consortium was stalled following a public interest litigation which questioned the way the contract was given causing loss to the Exchequer. The High Court ordered status quo in the award of project to the private developer, pending final disposal of the petition. The Secretary of DoT, Mr Nripendra Mishra, recently stated that they have sent a team to Hyderabad to discuss matters relating to the clearance of such a project and regulatory concerns thereof. The broadband project was conceived by the erstwhile Chandrababu Naidu Government and sought to be implemented through public private participatory model. It envisaged creating a one-gigabyte pipe up to the district level and a 10-megabyte network up to mandal-level and one megabyte up to villages. The Andhra Pradesh Technology Services Ltd and the Aksh consortium had planned to create a special purpose vehicle (SPV) for the project wherein the former would invest Rs 25 crore.
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