The government of Tamil Nadu has formally notified the BharatNet project and has announced the allocation of tenders for the project in the state.
Earlier, on February 25, 2021, the ministry of commerce and industry had issued a letter to the Tamil Nadu government, giving a go-ahead for the project. In the letter, the Department for Promotion of Industry and Internal Trade (DPIIT) had stated that the department has no objection if Tamil Nadu FibreNet Corporation Limited (TANFINET) goes ahead with finalisation of tenders after taking approval of competent authority.
The project was earlier stalled twice after DPIIT received complaints from Chennai-based NGO Arappor Iyakkam and a few competing contractors on tender conditions. In the letter, the Department of Telecommunications (DoT) had given its comments, clarifying doubts and questions raised by various parties regarding issues in the tender such as network system design, specified configuration of routers, switches, network equipment, eligibility conditions of a single original equipment manufacturer (OEM) for all routers in packages and operating temperature of the equipment.
Based on these clarifications, the DPIIT was asked to take a call. Now, the DPIIT has given a go-ahead to the project and asked TANFINET to finalise the contractors.
