Cabinet extends broadband contract for another four years

The state Cabinet on Wednesday extended the contract for the Goa Broadband Network (GBBN) for four years to provide broadband services, including e-government, to the government, citizens and businesses in the state.

The GBBN project was initiated by the government to create a high bandwidth broadband network covering the entire state of Goa.

It was implemented by United Telecom Limited (UTL) under the public-private partnership (PPP) and build own operate (BOO) model, without any fibre being ported for 10 years.

The state government has appointed PricewaterhouseCoopers (PwC) through Software Technology Parks of India (STPI) to analyse GBBN’s exit management and find a solution.

PwC indicated in its exit management report several options that needed to be considered.

The state government initially opted to terminate the existing agreement under the options presented by PwC. They approached BSNL to provide connectivity instead of UTL, but BSNL charged Rs 106 crore per annum, excluding terminal equipment and power equipment. So the government renewed the agreement with UTL at an annual cost of Rs 22 crore three times.

The Cabinet note said that since GBBN was implemented on the BOO model with no option to transfer the fibre to the government, the ministry of information technology, electronics and communications (DITE&C) had taken several initiatives. A proposal was submitted to the Union government for sanctioning funds of Rs 484 crore under BharatNet Phase-II for laying broadband backbone infrastructure in Goa, under a state-led model. The state is still awaiting its response.

According to a cabinet note, a detailed project report (DPR) was also submitted to the Union government under the special assistance scheme, for allocation of Rs 768 crore as loan to build a state-owned fibre optic cable network. It included backbone broadband infrastructure along with last mile connectivity to end users at the village level. So far, only Rs 50 crore has been allocated. Grinning Face