The government has identified 7,871 sites for building towers to provide telephone connectivity in rural areas under the Universal Service Obligation (USO) Fund.

The government has identified 7,871 sites for building towers to provide telephone connectivity in rural areas under the Universal Service Obligation (USO) Fund. This is part of the first phase of the tower project in which private and public sector players will be allowed to share government infrastructure built by DoT. In the first phase, the government will provide connectivity to 14,183 villages. For the second phase, DoT will identify 10,000 sites for setting up communication towers that will provide 25 million telephone connections to people in rural India. In the third phase, another 35 million telephone connections will be provided.