Sterlite Technologies, a Vedanta group company, has secured orders worth Rs 2,500 crore from Bharat Sanchar Nigam Ltd (BSNL) for deployment of optical fibre cable (OFC) network.

The company has won a deal to supply OFC for BSNL’s Jammu & Kashmir region and other parts of the country.

Under the Rs 1,950-crore order, the company will deploy and maintain a part of Network for Spectrum (NFS) project in J&K, it said in a statement.

Under this contract, to be executed by 2016, Sterlite Technologies will also build a new communication network for the Armed Forces. The network comprises a highly-resilient OFC-based nationwide optical backbone for Defence sites and access networks at Army sites, the company said.

Sterlite will design, plan and implement this country-wide secure, multi-protocol converged network. It is based on dedicated tri-services optical transport backbone.

The OFC network will be owned and operated by the Defence services under the Project Implementation Core Group (PICG), Ministry of Defence (MoD).

The Defence project gains importance as the Armed Forces will migrate all their communications to this alternate system, thereby freeing spectrum for commercial use.

Indian government had earlier decided to release 150 MHz spectrum held by Defence in the frequency 1700-2000 MHz to meet the requirements of the commercial sector.

Additionally, the Pune-based firm has won a annual maintenance contract for an OFC network in J&K. The seven-year-contract is valued at about Rs 500 crore.

Shares in Sterlite Technologies closed up 4.97 per cent at Rs 68.60, after the announcement, on the BSE which closed up at 25,516.40.

rajesh.kurup@thehindu.co.in

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