ITI Limited receives ₹433 cr worth order from TN government

Multi-technology public sector major ITI Limited has received a work order from the Tamil Nadu government undertaking TANFINET (Tamil Nadu Fibrenet Corporation Limited) regarding BharatNet Phase-II for Package D.

According to release, the contract’s value is ₹432.97 crore and has to be implemented within 360 days, followed by three years for operations & maintenance from the date of ‘Project Go-Live’ under the delivery schedules.

The scope of work includes planning, survey, supply, installation, commissioning, testing, end-to-end integration, operation & maintenance of Optical Fibre Network (OFN), and Electronics for Broadband connectivity under BharatNet Phase- II in Tamil Nadu for Package D. As part of this package, ITI will be covering ten districts surrounding 109 blocks, 3,103 gram panchayats, 845 revenue villages across the length and breadth of Tamil Nadu state providing a minimum of 1 Gbps bandwidth service.

The package also includes radio connectivity for Gram Panchayats that cannot be connected through fibre, implementation of horizontal connectivity to government premises, schools, and primary health centres (PHCs). Around 15,000 km of fibre cable will be laid, including underground and aerial fibre to connect Gram Panchayats with blocks, district centres, and state headquarter.

ITI Limited said that it has vast experience in executing OFN work around India, and is already successfully executing OFN works worth around ₹4,500 crore in Maharashtra and Gujarat. ITI Limited is the Project Implementation Agency (PIA) for MahaNet-I (BharatNet Phase II) in Maharashtra. In Gujarat, ITI Limited is executing two packages of BharatNet Phase II for Gujarat fibre Grid Network Ltd (GFGNL).

Commenting on winning the order, Rakesh Mohan Agarwal, Chairman & Managing Director, ITI Limited said, “We are proud to be a partner of Government of Tamil Nadu which aims to empower rural Tamil Nadu and create jobs, opportunities, and growth. High-speed internet will be a big boon for students in rural areas, and will contribute towards addressing issues like digital-divide among rural population.”

Emphasising ITI’s contribution to the BharatNet project, Agarwal said, “ITI has implemented BharatNet Phase I in several states and TANFINET project gives us an opportunity to scale up our contribution further. We are focused on assisting Govt. of India in its initiatives like Make-in-India, Digital-India, and Smart City missions.”

BharatNet project aims to provide high-speed broadband connectivity to the 250,000 Gram Panchayats in the country to provide broadband connectivity to all the villages in the country. The Hindu BusinessLine