Tamil Nadu FibreNet Corporation Limited (TANFINET) signed a Master Service Agreement for the implementation of BharatNet Project’s two packages in the State, with L&T, ITI Ltd. and BECIL, in the presence of Minister for Information Technology T. Mano Thangaraj in Chennai on Wednesday.
TANFINET, a special purpose vehicle, is implementing the BharatNet project in the State at a sanctioned cost of ₹1,815.32 crore and aims to provide 1 Gbps bandwidth connectivity to all village panchayats in the State. The ‘C’ and ‘D’ packages of the project aim to provide 1 Gbps bandwidth connectivity to over 6,400 village panchayats in 19 districts across the State.
While package C will cover a total of 3,326 village panchayats in Coimbatore, Karur, Nagapattinam, Namakkal, Pudukkottai, Thanjavur, Tiruchi, Tiruppur and Tiruvarur districts, package D will cover a total of 3,103 village panchayats in Dindigul, Kanniyakumari, Madurai, Ramanathapuram, Sivaganga, Tenkasi, Theni, Thoothukudi, Tirunelveli and Virudhunagar districts, an official release said.
“After the disposal of the pending litigations in Package A and Package B, the project will be implemented in all the 12,525 village panchayats in Tamil Nadu,"” the release said.
In order to implement the project, four packages - A, B, C & D - were formed district wise, and four system integrators were identified, one for each package, along with a third-party agency (TPA) to inspect and audit the implementation. BharatNet aims to provide quality digital services, e-education, telemedicine and triple-play services to all village panchayats in the State.
Secretary of Department of Information Technology Neeraj Mittal, TANFINET Managing Director A.K. Kamal Kishore, Chief General Manager in Bharat Broadband Network Limited (BBNL) G. Kalaivani, BBNL’s Principal General Manager M. Chandrasekhar and representatives of the companies involved in implementing the project were also present during the event.
