Aksh Optifibre Limited has been awarded an order of about Rs 1.02 billion (USD 17 Million) for the supply of optical fibre cables (OFC) to be used for the Network for Spectrum (NFS) project, which is being implemented for the defence forces. The company won the contract after emerging as the lowest bidder along with ITI Limited, for Package F of the project which mainly covers West Bengal, Odisha, Bihar, Jharkhand, Andaman & Nicobar Islands and Sikkim. The companies will be involved in supplying and handling end-to-end deployment of an optical fibre cable backbone network for India’s defence forces.
The NFS project is being implemented by Bharat Sanchar Nigam Limited and is likely to entail an investment of Rs 130 billion. The project consists of total OFC routes, aggregating to 57,015 km which is divided into seven packages and is planned to be completed in 18 months duration. The project is intended for rollout of a nationwide OFC network and will be owned and operated by the defence forces under the Project Implementation Core Group (PICG) of the Ministry of Defence. With the NFS project, the defence forces will be able to migrate all their communication needs to this alternate optic fibre network and free more bandwidth for commercial telephony.
Chetan Choudhari, managing director, Aksh Optifibre said ?The Company has extensive capability in manufacturing custom-made cables for different requirements and geographies and is more than delighted to be a part of the strategically important NFS project of the Indian Armed Forces.? He also added that ?Aksh has developed a custom cable design to suit the robust needs to the network without compromising on the strength of the cables, making them highly durable and maintenance free.?
