DoT to send NBP draft to the Cabinet by end-August

The Department of Telecommunications (DoT) plans to place the draft of the proposed National Broadband Plan (NBP) before the cabinet by August-end.

Meanwhile, DoT has sent a note on the project to various government departments for their comments. It hopes to receive these comments in two weeks, after which, the NBP plan will be sent to the cabinet for approval.

The Telecom Regulatory Authority of India (TRAI) has estimated the expenditure of rolling out an optic fibre network for the NBP at Rs 656 billion. DoT has already begun the process of issuing a tender for this project.

It is believed that four project teams are working to digitalise the existing infrastructure, creating bid documents, form a special purpose vehicle and ink memorandums of understanding with state governments for their cooperation.

DoT plans to utilise a geographical information system (GIS) tool to map the country?s existing optic fibre networks. The NBP will be funded by the Universal Service Obligation (USO) Fund.