Chennai-Andamans submarine cable project flagged off

The Andaman and Nicobar Islands will soon be connected with the mainland through highly-sophisticated optical fibre cable (OFC) that will provide high-speed broadband in all parts of the islands.

This ₹1,224-crore project to lay 2,250 km of submarine OFC will bridge the digital gap between Andaman and Nicobar Islands, said Ravi Shankar Prasad, Union Minister for Law and Justice, Communications and Electronics and Information Technology.

At the inauguration of the project, Prasad also announced that a similar project connecting Kochi with Lakshadweep group of islands will be taken up at a cost of ₹1,000 crore. “Today is a milestone in the history of India. Earlier, the connectivity to Andaman and Nicobar Islands was via satellite. From June 2020, it will be under the sea. The depth of laying the cable ranges from 1,000 ft to 3 km,” said Prasad.