Telangana's Ambitious T-Fiber Project: A Push for $1,250 Crore Loan

Telangana Chief Minister Revanth Reddy has requested an interest-free, long-term loan of Rs 1,250 crore from the Centre for the T-Fiber project, aimed at providing fiber connectivity to 93 lakh households. In meetings with Union Telecom Minister Jyotiraditya Scindia and others, Reddy highlighted the project's benefits and sought additional support.

Telangana Chief Minister Revanth Reddy on Friday appealed to the Centre for an interest-free, long-term loan amounting to Rs 1,250 crore to support the T-Fiber project, which seeks to provide fiber connectivity to 93 lakh households for Rs 300 per month.

In a meeting with Union Telecom Minister Jyotiraditya Scindia, Reddy disclosed that the state government had already secured Rs 530 crore from financial institutions for the Rs 1,779-crore project. He emphasized the need for the remaining sum to be sourced as a long-term, interest-free loan from the Universal Service Obligation Fund (USOF).

The Chief Minister, accompanied by Deputy Chief Minister Mallu Bhatti Vikramarka, emphasized the aim of the T-Fiber project to connect all village panchayats, mandals, and districts with high-speed internet, cable TV, and e-education services, along with G2G and G2C connectivity to 65,500 government institutions.

Additionally, Reddy called for the timely provision of infrastructure for the National Optical Fiber Network (NOFN) Phase 1 and urged fast-track approval of the Detailed Project Report for converting NOFN Phase 1 to BharatNet-3 architecture. He also requested an extension of the BharatNet movement scheme to T-Fiber.

In a separate meeting with Union Sports Minister Mansukh L Mandaviya, Reddy sought opportunities to host national and international sports events and requested financial assistance to establish a Sports University.