The Union Cabinet chaired by Prime Minister Narendra Modi has approved Rs 5,336 crore telecom Capex plan for North East region.
North East will see the setting up of 6,673 towers for connecting unconnected villages and 321 mobile towers for national highways.
The plan will be funded from the Universal Service Obligation Fund (USOF). The USOF would fund capital expenditure (Capex) and operational expenditure (Opex) net of revenue for a period of five years.
The project will increase the reliability of district and state headquarters connectivity by providing alternative optical fiber connectivity.
It will also ensure that notwithstanding any problem in one route, the voice and data transfer through other route will keep the district and state headquarters connected.
This project is aimed to cover the uncovered villages in the North East Region and to keep seamless connectivity on national highways.
At present, there are 43,200 villages in this region out of which 9190 (21 percent) of the villages are unconnected to any mobile network.
This project will cover out of the 9,190 unconnected villages, 8,621 villages (20 percent) by 6,673 towers. The project will give seamless connectivity to national highways through 321 mobile towers.
