NNational Optical Fiber Network (“NOFN”) and North East Optical Fiber Cable project under USOF

With an aim to democratize information to improve governance and service delivery at the Panchayats through increased efficiency, accountability, transparency, collaboration and greater decentralized decision-making, the Government of India has agreed to create optical fiber cable based broadband infrastructure for all panchayats. The Government of India through the Department of Telecom had created a High Level Committee to study and create a strategy plan for providing broadband connectivity to all 250,000 panchayats in India on fiber optic cable with minimum 100 Mbps speed. Based on the recommendation of the HLC, the Cabinet Committee on Infrastructure approved the project. The network shall be used to provide various e-governance services as well as internet facility to all panchayats. Bharat Broadband Network Limited was created to implement the NOFN project as well as own the entire network. We have been selected as one of the implementing partners to lay the incremental optical fiber cable network to connect the panchayats with respective block headquarters on 100 Mbps broadband speed. We have been allotted certain states comprising 36,000 panchayats which includes the states of Gujarat, Daman & Diu, Dadar & Nagar Haveli, Tamil Nadu, Puducherry, Meghalaya, Mizoram, Tripura, Arunachal Pradesh, Manipur and Nagaland. As of June 30, 2020, 24,037 kilometers of optical fiber cable had been laid and as of June 30, 2020 over 6,500 panchayats had been connected.