The Ministry of Home Affairs has put on hold the security clearance for 250 foreign staff engaged by Vodafone South and Infotel Telecom for building landing stations for the mega Bay of Bengal Gateway (BBG) subsea cable system. The ministry wants these foreign nations to route their online applications to the Indian embassy in their respective home countries and not through the Department of Telecommunications.

The 8,000 km BBG submarine network is being developed by a consortium of telecom operators from the South and Southeast Asian regions for linking India with Malaysia, Singapore, Oman, United Arab Emirates and Sri Lanka. The cable will be interconnected with subsea cable systems across Africa, Europe and Americas.

Meanwhile, the DoT is also likely to shortly seek the home ministry's nod to modify licence conditions pertaining to security clearances for foreigners engaged by Indian international long distance operators, especially for international subsea cable system ventures.