Mohammed Sajid & Tarun Kartick
Port Blair, Sep 25: Uncertainty still looms large over the ambitious under sea optical fiber cable project connecting various Islands in Andaman and Nicobar Islands with Mainland India, for better telecommunication services. The process has become so complex that from three bid tender it has become a single bid tender. According to fresh reports, the ANIIDCO has completed the tender process and after completing the single bid tender now the file has been sent to the Ministry for clearance.
On 26th of March 2013 the Administration had mentioned that 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.
However M/s Bharti Airtel Ltd was ruled out by the administration because it demanded several changes in the project plans and finally the administration was left with only one bidder M/s Tata Communications and the file with only one bidder has now been sent to the ministry for clearance, which is still not received.
Andaman Sheekha contacted Mr. Utpal Sharma, Special Secretary, Optical Fiber Cable Project to know about the whereabouts of the projects now, Mr. Utpal informed us that till now clearance from the ministry is not received and once it is received he will be able to inform about the progress of the project in details. He however preferred not to comment more in this issue.
Insider told Andaman Sheekha that as there is only one bidder and so much money is involved the concerned Ministry may not take this project very seriously. Moreover the biggest hiccup, of environmental clearance has not been taken yet by Administration. The file for environmental clearance will be moved only after approval of Public Investment Board. So Islanders should better think of other options for better internet connectivity as this project will certainly take a long time only for getting all clearance.
It seems demanding V-sat in highly subsidized rate and more bandwidth from government are the better option than simply waiting for undersea optical fiber connectivity.
