AP, the first state to accomplish NOFN on its own

Finance Minister Arun Jaitley informed that for executing the National Optical Fibre Network (NOFN) on its own, Andhra Pradesh has become the first state and the telecom department will reimburse the cost for the same.

While presenting the Budget for 2015-16 in Parliament, Jaitley said that Fibre network of 7.5 lakh kilometres is being further speeded up in 2.5 lakh villages by allowing the states that are willing to undertake its execution on settlement of cost determined by the Department of Telecommunications. Choosing this method of implementation, Andhra Pradesh makes itself the first state.

Andhra Pradesh had proposed to deliver broadband connection with 10-15 mbps download speed to each 12 million households for Rs 150/month that are planned to be covered under state designed project.

In five years, the state proposed to execute the project with a cost of Rs 4,913 crore while Centre has allocated Rs 1,940 crore for the NOFN project in the state.

Own corporation will be created by the state to be named as Andhra Pradesh Fibre Corporation for executing this project, which would be completely owned by state. The corporation will control the network and also own the assets. Another entity 'Digital Andhra Corporation' will be created responsible for creation of ecosystem for broadband adoption using Public-Private-Partnership model.