NEW DELHI: Minister of State for Electronics and Information Technology Rajeev Chandrasekhar on Friday asked the Kerala government the "reason or pressure" for using the Chinese-origin optical fibre in its Kerala Fibre Optic Network (KFON) project.
The minister, while addressing a press briefing after a presentation on how far India has travelled in terms of digitisation in the last nine years, said India has many optical fibre plants but wondered why Kerala needed to import from China.
"They didn't require importing from China, and this (optical fibre) is a domestically available product. There are many plants in India that manufacture optical fibre. Why did they need to import from China. What was the pressure? What was the reason?" the minister said.
The Kerala Fibre Optic Network (KFON) is a Rs 1611-crore project, and is a joint venture of Kerala State Electricity Board (KSEB) and Kerala State IIT Infrastructure Limited. The purpose of the project is to provide internet connectivity to the state and also free internet to BPL families.
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However, as per reports, it is believed that the cable or optical fibre used in this project are of Chinese origin. Therefore, it is violating Central government regulations, which mandate importing telecom or communication devices designated as "trusted products" from "trusted sources".
"We are not against any country nor are we particularly against a source of the product. But there is one framework in the country - trusted source. It means, an equipment and its source should be trusted wherever it is from. There is nothing like against one particular country," said the minister.
After confrontations between Indian and Chinese troops in Ladakh in 2020, the government came up with a national security directive on the telecom sector. It means telecom service providers will have to use devices, which are designated as "trusted products" from "trusted sources". The government has deployed the National Cyber Security Coordinator as the designated authority for determining about a vendor or product.