DoT not awarded work to CSC Wifi Chaupal Services directly under BharatNet: MoS telecom

The telecom department has not awarded directly any work to CSC Wifi Chaupal Services India under the BharatNet project, Parliament was informed on Thursday. Minister of state for communications Devusinh Chauhan in a written reply to the Rajya Sabha said CSC eGovernance Services India Limited (CSC-SPV) has been awarded the maintenance work of the BharatNet phase-1 project. The work includes the operation and maintenance of incremental optical fibre cable network, first-line maintenance of equipment and supporting infrastructure of the BharatNet Phase-I.

CSC-SPV is a special purpose vehicle under the Ministry of Electronics & Information Technology (MeitY), with MeitY Secretary as its Chairman.

In reply to a question that ''whether there exists a tender in place while issuing project contract under BharatNet by Department of Telecommunications to private parties/CSC-SPV through CSC Wi-Fi Choupal Services India Private Limited'', the minister said the DoT ''has not awarded directly any work to CSC Wi-Fi Chaupal Services India Private Limited under BharatNet project''.

''The provisioning of Wi-Fi Services in about 1.10 lakh GPs (gram panchayats) has also been assigned to CSC-SPV. Out of the aforesaid GPs assigned to CSC-SPV, it is also providing fibre to the home (FTTH) connections to 5 Government Institutions per GP in 77,000 (approximately) GPs,'' Chauhan said.

As informed by CSC-SPV, it engages the vendors on the basis of inviting open expression of interest, he added. The government under BharatNet phase-1 connected 1 lakh village panchayats with a high-speed broadband network.

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