Aksh bags Rs 400cr broadband project

State cabinet okays finalisation of Andhra Pradesh Broadband project

A consortium led by Gurgaon-based Aksh Broadband Limited has been selected to implement the Rs 400-crore Andhra Pradesh broadband project, which aims at extending broadband services to each and every village of the state in the next two years.

The project, once completed, is expected to give a stiff competition to other broadband service providers, including the BSNL, as the promoters have indicated to charge just Rs 100 a month for a domestic broadband connection.

The project will provide services with a minimum bandwidth of 2 Mbps, which is almost eight times higher, as compared to the bandwidth offered by the BSNL.

The state cabinet that met here today has approved the finalisation of the project. The execution of the project is scheduled to begin in April 2005 and will be completed by December 2006.

The other companies in the consortium include Railtel Corporation India Limited, Tata Indicom, VSNL Limited, INcable Network (Andhra) Limited, Spectranet Limited and Nuziveedu Seeds Limited.

According to Ali Shabbir, minister for information and public relations, the promoters' equity in the project would be about Rs 150 crore and the state government, as a minor shareholder through the APTechnology services (APTS) corporation, will provide Rs 25 crore. The rest of the money would be mobilised from domestic and foreign financial institutions.

Out of the 36 companies who gave expression of interest, eight of them had submitted their bids in September 2004. Of them, the consortium led by Gurgaon-based optic fibre manufacturer emerged successful bidder, based on the project cost and other parameters.

The broadband project will connect the state headquarter with 10 Gbps to each of the district headquarters, one Gbps to each of the 1,127 mandal headquarters and 100 Mbps to each of the villages. The network will have optic fibre connectivity right up to the village level.

According to Ajay Sahni, joint secretary, IT department, the Aksh consortium will also utilise the existing optic fibre lines of companies like Tata Teleservices before establishing its own optic fibre network across the state.

Among other customers, the proposed broadband network will provide broadband services to 40,000 government offices across the state. This will enable the government departments to deliver various citizen services through eSeva centres, Rajiv Internet Village Kiosks and web-based online services.

The network will also enable the rural folk to access video-conferencing, internet surfing among other facilities.

Meanwhile, the state cabinet today reversed the disinvestment proposal mooted by the previous government in the state owned Andhra Pradesh Industrial Infrastructure Corporation(APIIC). The earlier government had proposed to sell 49 per cent stake in APIIC. Today's decision will keep the APIIC fully with the government.

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Into the web

• Promoters likely to charge Rs 100 a month for a domestic broadband connection
• The execution of the project is scheduled to begin in April 2005 and will be completed by December 2006
• While the promoters' equity in the project would be about Rs 150 crore, the state government will provide Rs 25 crore