Kerala Infrastructure Investment Fund Board approval for fibre optic network soon

THIRUVANANTHAPURAM: The Kerala Infrastructure Investment Fund Board (KIIFB) is likely to approve the detailed project report of the much-hyped Kerala Optic Fibre Network project this week. According to sources, K-FON’s project report was scheduled to be considered by the board of KIIFB on Wednesday. Once the approval is received, the tendering process would commence soon. The Kerala State IT Mission had earlier submitted the project for KIIFB funding after the government gave administrative sanction for the Rs 1,028-crore project.

The K-FON project, announced in the last Budget, aims at providing high-speed connectivity to over 30,000 government educational institutions and offices, basic internet service to all citizens and free internet connectivity to 20 lakh families belonging to the BPL category. The government also plans to make the 2,000 public Wi-Fi project part of the KFON network in due course. Tendering process for the public Wi-Fi project was already on.

The K-FON project, targeted to be made operational in 18 months after awarding of the work, would be also subleased to private internet service providers for offering e-services to the public. Faster delivery of government's e-services to bottom levels of the society is the broader objective of the project. Services like e-health and education programmes were also proposed to be delivered though K-FON.