E Arun & Tarun Kartick
Port Blair, July 31: Just when Port Blair city is buzzing with rumours that the project of laying Undersea Optical Fibre Cable has been scrapped by government of India, Mr. Utpal Sharma, Special Secretary, IT today clarified that the project is still alive and kicking. He also rubbished all the rumours.
Talking to Andaman Sheekha Mr. Sharma today said that the bidding process was completed recently and the Administration will now send the report to the Expenditure Finance Committee of Govt. of India. Only after the nod from Expenditure Finance Committee the project will begin.
The Planning Commission, Govt. of India in April 2011 approved the proposal for laying of undersea optical fibre cable to provide a reliable and secure telecommunication link between the islands and the mainland. The A & N Administration appointed ANIIDCO as the implementation agency, accordingly bids for the project were floated in November 2011 and subsequently after various rounds of pre-bid meeting with the potential bidders, the revised bid was issued during July 2012.
The proposal is to connect nine islands viz. Port Blair, Havelock, Neil, Little Andaman, Car Nicobar, Kamorta, Katchal, Teressa and Campbell Bay. North & Middle Andaman are already connected by optical fibre cable. With the implementation of the undersea cable project, telecom services will improve in the islands and will also promote setting up of IT industries in the island providing employment opportunities in the fields of e-commerce, e-governance and m-commerce.
The project involves taking two branching units from one of the existing submarine cable from Chennai to Singapore having minimum balance life of 15 years. Presently only two companies viz. M/s Bharti Airtel Ltd. and M/s Tata Communications are having undersea cable going through A & N Islands and both the bidders participated in the tender.
The financial bid of the eligible tenderer was opened on 25.03.2013 and the estimated capital cost of the project is Rs. 413.55 crores plus operation and maintenance expenses for a period of 15 years.
Administration has already obtained defence clearance and clearance from MHA and DOT for restoration path via Singapore. The proposal is being sent to Govt. of India for approval of the Public Investment Board (PIB) for award of the work. The estimated project completion time for connecting Port Blair is 15 months, and for other islands, it is 20 months from the date of award of work.
At present telecommunication facilities are available in the islands through satellite transponders provided by ISRO. The present bandwidth availability is only around 350 Mbps, against the present projected demand of around 8.0 Gbps. Because of non-availability of sufficient bandwidth, telecom services in the islands have not been satisfactory.
