Ravi Shankar Prasad, the Minister of Communications and IT, has urged telecom industry to come up with business models that could provide the government a monetisation opportunity for the National Optical Fiber Network (NOFN) project.

Speaking at the Convergence India 2015 summit, Prasad reached out to industry heads and encouraged them to come up with business models so that the NOFN project can be leveraged by various stakeholders including private operators. According to him, the government aims to connect 250,000 gram panchayats through the NOFN project and lay down 700,000 kilometres of fibre across the country over the next three years. The minister stated that the pan-India fibre network would be non discriminatory so that anyone could plug in for services.

The NOFN project worth over Rs 200 billion has been facing delays since the approval of project in 2012 by the previous government led by the United Progressive Alliance. Further, the minister pointed out that the challenge before the present government lays in extending the fibre beyond panchayat level.

Responding to Prasad’s call for greater participation of private players in the NOFN project, Manoj Kohli, chairman and managing director, Bharti Airtel International suggested that the private and public sector could work together for the Digital India initiative by focusing on providing connectivity to 600,000 villages while reaching out to 750 million people. Kohli added that as part of the government’s Digital India initiative, operators should aim to provide services such as birth and death certificates through NOFN project at grass root levels.