ITI Limited has received a ten-year work order worth Rs 714 billion from the Department of Telecommunications (DoT) for conducting third-party assessment (TPA) of sites installed under various agreements signed between the Universal Service Obligation Fund (USOF) and Reliance Jio, Bharti Airtel, Bharti Hexacom, and Bharat Sanchar Nigam Limited (BSNL).
As per the agreement, ITI Limited will carry out the physical verification of commissioned sites, verification of coverage evaluation in village/national highways (NH)/cluster of villages to be covered by USOF sites through drive test, verification of coverage evaluation of all other telecom operators in village/NH/cluster of villages to be covered by USOF site for identification of duplicate or redundant infrastructure sites or towers.
The work order also mentioned that there are 34,415 sites/villages to be verified by ITI Limited. However, the administrator of USOF may increase or decrease the number of sites/villages.
Further, the USOF shall make payment to ITI Limited site-wise quarterly. However, in case the specified activities are not completed as per the terms and conditions, USOF can terminate the right to terminate the work order and/or impose liquidated damage (LD) with 1 per cent price of the total order value for a fortnight or a part of it, subject to a maximum limit of 10 per cent total order value.
