Centre to reduce share in Bharatnet phase-3

Mumbai: The Union government will reduce its share in the “Bharatnet phase-3” project, resulting in an increase in the state’s financial burden by more than Rs 1,000 crore from the next financial year.

Bharatnet is a scheme of the Union government providing financial assistance for installing optical fibre network in villages. The central government was earlier funding up to 75 per cent of the total cost of the project. However due to financial crunch, the Central government will reduce its share and may fund up to only 50 per cent of the total project cost. A meeting has been called in Delhi in this regard and all state governments will be informed. If the state does not provide sufficient funds, it will affect chief minister Devendra Fadnavis’ ambitious project to connect all gram panchayats in the state.

The Central government provided Rs 3,000 crores in this financial year with the state contributing Rs 1,000 crores. If the Union government reduces its share, the state will have to provide more funds to complete these projects, a senior official from the information and technology department told The Asian Age. The optical fibre network (linear technology) was installed under this scheme in the past few years. However, linear technology has many limitations and the system is not working properly. Now branch technology will be used. The advantage is that the whole area will not be affected if any faults occur in the system. The system is costly but advanced. So, all
future works will be carried out using this technology only, officials asserted.