The Department of Telecommunications (DoT) is planning to establish an application development centre, called Application Development Infrastructure (ADI) with an initial investment of Rs 10 billion.
The centre, expected to come up over a period of three years, will offer testing facilities, support for launch and commercial run and storage capacities to entrepreneurs. The ADI will be connected with state-owned as well as private telecom service providers and a payment gateway which will enable application developers to reach out to customers across the country.
The project will be financed by the Universal Services Obligation (USO) Fund, which is likely to explore the option of roping in private players as equity partners.
Under the project, financing will be limited to Rs 20 million per proposer and a single entity will not be provided support for more than two projects. Financing will be considered only if the bank appraising the project agrees to fund the requirements initially up to nine times the contribution to be made by a proposer.
USO Fund will reimburse up to four times the project cost. Further, the proposing entity will have the option to buy back 75 per cent of the equity anytime up to five years from disbursement of funds at double the cost. There will be a two-year moratorium on repayment and interest payment. Payment of interest during the moratorium period will be borne by USO Fund.
