HYDERABAD: With the State’s revenues dwindling due to the Covid-19 outbreak and the subsequent lockdown, the government is finding it hard to raise funds for its fibre optic cable-laying initiative T-Fiber. The State government is planning to approach the Central government to review the terms of the scheme and request the Telecom Ministry for funds.
Under T-Fiber, the government has been laying optic fibre cables across Telangana. It is important to note that the initiative only provides the infrastructure and not Internet to citizens, except in the case of government-to-government (G2G) and government-to-citizen (G2C) services. Internet would be provided by telecom giants who would lease the infrastructure.
T-Fibre work has been going on for a long time, and as of now, more than 70,000 km of fibre optic cables have been laid by the State, leveraging the Mission Bhagiratha work. It is important to note that the initiative is closely connected to the Centre’s BharatNet scheme. While BharatNet focuses on providing infrastructure at block and gram panchayat levels, T-Fiber looks at zonal and last-mile connection.
However, at present, the State is finding it hard to procure funds for last-mile connection. “With the revenues of the State dwindling, it will be hard to raise loans for the scheme. Further, the priorities of the government has changed due to the pandemic,” an official said. An IT Department official said that the government would soon be writing to the Centre, urging it to modify the terms of the scheme and raise funds for the same.