View: BharatNet crucial for achieving progress towards Digital India's goals
Bharat Broadband Network Limited (BBNL), is one of the largest rural telecom initiatives in the world. It's designed to bring broadband connectivity to every village. Initially launched in 2011 as National Optical Fibre Network (NOFN), BharatNet aims to connect 2.5 lakh gram panchayats (GPs). With an initial budget of Rs 42,000 cr, about Rs 40,000 cr has been spent.
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In 2014-15, when NOFN was being restructured and rebranded, a PPP model for implementing the project was proposed. This was to follow the 'build-own-operate-transfer' (BOOT) model with viability gap funding (VGF). Such an approach could have addressed the issue of broadband proliferation in rural areas and would have been the most cost-effective model from GoI's perspective. Unfortunately, it was not accepted, and an implementation model involving PSUs — RailTel, PowerGrid and BSNL — was adopted. This has not been an effective implementation strategy.
A PPP approach could have streamlined the project's execution and enhanced network utilisation. Now, BSNL, which has been given the responsibility of operating BharatNet, is exploring ways to distribute last-mile connectivity.
According to BharatNet, about 2.1 lakh GPs are now service-ready, and 1.04 lakh wi-fi points have been installed. However, revenue generated from bandwidth sales by BSNL is unknown. The total data used per month is
