The Government of India (GoI) has given Bharti Airtel and Reliance Jio a project to roll out 4G services in the rural or uncovered villages of the country. Airtel, the second-largest telecom operator in India, will be installing 1,083 mobile towers with an estimated expenditure of Rs 847.95 crore in Maharashtra and Jharkhand while Reliance Jio will roll out 3,696 mobile towers for Rs 2,836 crore.
According to a PTI report, the GoI had awarded the project to the telcos in May 2022.
Jio and Airtel Have 18 Months to Complete the Project
A source told the news agency that both the telcos had been given 18 months by the government to complete the project. Last year, the Cabinet approved the project for providing 4G services in uncovered villages of the aspirational districts of five states. This project allotted to Jio and Airtel is in line with that only.
Under the project, the government aims to bring 4G based mobile services to 7,287 uncovered villages of 44 aspirational districts across five states, including Chhattisgarh, Jharkhand, Odisha, Maharashtra, and Andhra Pradesh. The estimated cost for this project is Rs 6,466 crore, spread over the span of five years.
The Universal Service Obligation Fund (USOF) will be leveraged to fund the project, which is likely to be completed by November 2023.
These projects will help Indian villages get connected to the internet and will also drive the income of private telcos up. Bharti Airtel and Reliance Jio have a lot of experience in setting up 4G networks in rural areas of the country.
More importantly, the telcos have the resources to get the work completed as fast as possible. The government will be allotting more projects to the telcos in the near future; Vodafone Idea (Vi) and Bharat Sanchar Nigam Limited (BSNL) might also be hopeful of scraping some of the projects for themselves.
