BharatNet fails to enter quick lane: Both phases looking at delays amid Covid

The central authorities’s flagship scheme, BharatNet, which goals to attach all of the gram panchayats and, subsequently, villages to high-speed optical fibre-based web is working not on time in each part one and part two of its implementation, in response to the newest information accessed by The Indian Express.
As of June 25, a complete of just one,56,833 gram panchayats, excluding block headquarters, had been service prepared whereas the web connectivity service was opened solely in 1,50,744 gram panchayats.
Of the overall, 1,18,635 gram panchayats had been made service prepared below part one in all BharatNet, whereas solely 34,689 have been made service prepared below part two of the scheme as of June 25, in response to the newest information obtainable.
A gram panchayat is taken into account service prepared when it’s linked to the principle grid of the web of the block headquarters of that space, whereas the web connectivity in that gram panchayat is taken into account open provided that there are finish customers linked to the web grid.
Under each phases of the scheme, optical fibre cable had been laid in 1,73,233 gram panchayats, of which fibre was laid in 1,23,654 gram panchayats below part one, whereas optical fibre cable was specified by 49,579 gram panchayats below part two.
The authorities had geared toward connecting all the two.5 lakh gram panchayats within the nation with excessive velocity optical fibre-enabled broadband by 2019. Under part one, 1 lakh gram panchayats had been purported to be linked to the web by way of excessive velocity optical fibre by 2019, whereas one other
1.5 lakh had been to be linked below part two by March 2020.
In March 2020, the deadline for each the phases was pushed again by 17 months to August 2021, whereas, later in September, the federal government mentioned the timeline for the completion of part two of BharatNet would now should be pushed past August 2021, too, as “the pace was affected by the lockdown and movement curbs imposed by various governments due to Covid”.
On August 15, in the meantime, Prime Minister Narendra Modi, throughout his Independence Day speech, introduced that the federal government would now join all of the 6 lakh villages in India with excessive velocity optical fibre over the subsequent 1,000 days.
The erstwhile BharatNet mission, which began in 2011 as National Optical Fibre Network, has missed a number of deadlines and has thus been delayed by greater than 92 months now. On June 30 this 12 months, the federal government modified the scheme’s implementation technique and determined to rope in personal gamers to complete the pending work of BharatNet.
The work will now be accomplished below a public-private partnership (PPP) mode, the place the concessionaire will probably be chosen by a aggressive worldwide bidding course of and will probably be liable for creation, upgradation, operation, upkeep and utilisation of BharatNet. The revised technique will probably be adopted in 16 states for now.
The Indian Express had in January 2020 reported that with the panchayat web connectivity scheme floundering finally mile attributable to its personal implementation companies failing, the Department of Telecommunications (DoT) had been trying to rope within the personal sector for completion of the pending initiatives below BharatNet part one and two.

The request for proposal for the PPP mode is prone to be launched over the subsequent fortnight and the federal government will then invite bidders for the mission, a senior authorities official mentioned. The complete estimated price of the BharatNet implementation below PPP mode will come to Rs 29,432 crore, of which the federal government will probably be spending Rs 19,041 crore for viability hole funding.