Visakhapatnam: It has been a year since the state government had submitted its proposal on the Fibre Grid project that aims to connect lakhs of houses with the internet. The Centre however is yet to sanction its capital expenditure requirement. The project has been conceived in the context of various e-initiatives undertaken by the Andhra Pradesh government and its vision to provide 10-15 Mbps broadband connections to 12 million homes at an affordable price.
Detailed Project Report (DPR) of the project was submitted by the state government in June 2015 seeking capital expenditure requirement of Rs 3,590 crore from the Central government. The Union IT and communications ministry is yet to take a decision on the funding. Under the fibre grid project, AP State Fibre Net Ltd (APSFL) had created infrastructure to connect every household in the thirteen districts of the state with optic fibre cable to provide internet telephone and cable TV at an affordable price.
In the first phase that costs around ' 320 crore, the government used electric poles to run the fibre optic cables. These fibre optic cables will be connected to the substations from where the local cable operators and MSOs will connect every household. In the next phase underground cabling will be done and it is at this juncture state needs the Centre’s financial assistance.
The Government has received the proposal from Andhra Pradesh for establishing an Andhra Pradesh Fibre Grid on a collaborative model with the state taking complete ownership for the end-to-end design and execution of the project availing partial funding from Universal Service Obligation Fund (USOF) under National Optical Fibre Network (NOFN) /BharatNet project and undertaking to arrange the balance funding required.
“The proposal submitted by Government of Andhra Pradesh has been examined. No final decision has however been taken" said Minister of State for Union IT and Communications P.P. Chaudhary in the Parliament on Thursday to a question raised by Fibre Grid proposal by Srikakulam MP Kinjarapu Ram Mohan Naidu. Andhra Pradesh also has plans to launch separate corporations under PPP to create content on various sectors like health, education, agriculture, for households connected to the fibre grid.
