NOFN to become BharatNet

Plagued by delays and mismanagement, the government is looking at a combination of federal solutions and private participation for its flagship project – National Optical Fiber Network (NOFN). If the government were to accept the report of a committee tasked with this matter, in most of the cases, the states will be the leaders of the project, and privatization will be the method of rollouts.

A nine-Member committee, appointed by the telecom ministry led by J Satyanarayana, former secretary DeitY and Adviser for e-governance of Andhra Pradesh, and comprising of two former presidents of Nasscom, was assigned the task. It submitted its report on March 31, 2015, which was made public in May 2015.