State-owned telecom services provider Bharat Sanchar Nigam Ltd (BSNL) has awarded a ₹1,901.1 crore contract to ITI Ltd (another government undertaking company) to execute development (creation, upgradation and operation & maintenance) works of Amended BharatNet programme in Arunachal Pradesh, Nagaland and Manipur.
Sources told businessline that the partners signed the agreement on Thursday.
BSNL, on behalf of the Universal Service Obligation Fund (USOF), had invited bids on February 15, 2024 for the selection of “Project Implementation Agency (PIA) for Amended BharatNet Program” and after several submissions of proposals by bidders, ITI was selected as the PIA for 10 years.
“On the basis of acceptance by PIA, for the tender conditions and rates discovered after tender process, BSNL on behalf of USOF has agreed to engage the PIA for the works as are represented in the terms of the tender enquiry, bid, negotiations and clarifications in relation to the implementation of the scope of work and referred in this agreement,” a source said quoting the matters of the agreement.
USOF, which has now been rechristened Digital Bharat Nidhi (DBN) under the Telecommunications Act, 2023, is the Centre’s initiative to expand telecommunications access in underserved rural and remote areas.
Under the BharatNet project the government has already spent around ₹42,000 crore in an attempt to bridge the digital divide between rural/ remote and urban areas.
Rural telecom
BharatNet is one of the biggest rural telecom projects in the world, implemented in a phased manner to all (around 2.5 lakh) Gram Panchayats (GPs) in the country for providing non-discriminatory access to broadband connectivity to all the telecom service providers.
Approved by the Cabinet in 2011, so far, 2,14,325 GPs are connected through the BharatNet project and 6,93,303 km of optical fibre cable (OFC) has been laid.
Additionally, 12,81,564 Fibre-To-The-Home (FTTH) connections are commissioned and 1,04,574 Wi-Fi hotspots are installed to ensure last-mile connectivity as on May 26, 2025.