NOFN: Racing Against Time

What is NOFN?

Last October, the Government of India gave an approval of `20,000 crore from the USO Fund (Universal Service Obligation) for setting up NOFN (National Optical Fiber Network) in the country. NOFN will help in connecting 250,000 gram panchayats with high speed broadband connectivity by extending optical fiber from block to gram panchayats within 2 years.

The NOFN project is similar to Pradhan Mantri Gram Sadak Yojna (PMGSY) but the only difference is that it is a digital super highway. The arrival of digital super highway is a blessing in disguise for India's rural population as 100 Mbps broadband connectivity will be provided to all gram panchayats. This large bandwidth would be useful for voice, data, video, and internet connectivity resulting in availability of videoconferencing, e-commerce, online education, tele-medicine, e-governance services, weather report, and agriculture report with the click of a button, thereby transforming the lives of rural population.

Not only this, NOFN would also help gram panchayats in terms of panchayat management, sharing of best practices, sharing of agricultural practices, vocational learning, and delivery of citizen services. It can act as a single source for the government to citizen interaction for centrally sponsored, central sector and state sponsored schemes, grievance redressal, and developmental planning. It will also help in connecting villagers with local markets thereby enabling farmers to get the best prices for their produce.

Speaking about NOFN, Ashwani Jain, executive director, PGCIL says, “NOFN will help in generating a lot of employment in rural areas.”

The Plan

To implement NOFN, government of India has incorporated BBNL, a public sector undertaking under the Companies Act. BBNL is a special purpose vehicle (SPV), set up by the government for establishing, managing, and operating NOFN. The company has an authorized share capital of `1,000 crore and initial paid up capital is to the tune of `100 crore.

To execute this project, the government has taken help of 3 PSUs-BSNL, PGCIL, and RailTel. PGCIL has bagged 4 circles-Andhra Pradesh, Jharkhand, Odisha, and Himachal Pradesh. RailTel has bagged 6 North Eastern states (Tripura, Nagaland, Mizoram, Manipur, Meghalaya, Arunachal Pradesh), Gujarat, Tamil Nadu, Gujarat, Puducherry, Dadra & Nagar Haveli, and Daman & Diu. The remaining state and union territories have gone to BSNL.

In terms of gram panchayat break-up, BSNL will connect around 178,000 gram panchayats, followed by PGCIL and RailTel with 36,000 each. All these PSUs have fiber on the ground which would be utilized for connecting gram panchayats. BBNL will deploy incremental fiber from wherever it exists in block to gram panchayat by utilizing the combined resource of all PSUs thereby reducing the overall cost of the project. It has been estimated that incremental optical fiber cable of 2 km per gram panchayat has to be laid based on the survey conducted by TCIL in states of Haryana, Tamil Nadu, and Maharashtra. So a total of 500,000 km of OFC would be laid for the complete duration of the project.

Speaking about the NOFN project, R Chandrashekhar, secretary, department of telecommunications says, “The government has already given `20,000 crore of investment in optical fiber network and while emphasizing broadband, it's very important to make it affordable.”

Technology Required

On the technology front, GPON (Gigabit Passive Optical Network) will be used. GPON is an open standard technology that brings fiber cabling and signals to the home using a point-to-multipoint scheme that enables a single optical fiber to serve multiple premises. The GPON standard differs from other PON standards and it helps in achieving higher bandwidth and higher efficiency using larger, variable-length packets.

Once the project is operational, BBNL will give 100 Mbps broadband connectivity to all gram panchayats. Not only this, it will also use this network for connecting service providers by providing bandwidth to operators be it ISP, cable TV providers, telecom service providers, or content providers enabling them to ride on NOFN network and help them in providing different types of services in rural areas. All this help BBNL to generate revenues from operators as the future is in rural areas.

To implement such a mammoth project, BBNL undertook 3 pilots covering 58 gram panchayats in Rajasthan, Andhra Pradesh, and Tripura. In Rajasthan, Arian Block from Ajmer district was chosen and BSNL laid fibers connecting all gram panchayats. Parvada Block from Visakhapatnam district was given to PGCIL and Panisagar Block, North Tripura district was given to RailTel. Laying of OFC has been completed for all 58 gram panchayats on October 15th, 2012, and BBNL can give 100 Mbps connection to all the gram panchayats.

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Having burnt its finger from CSC (Common Service Center), the government is taking extra pains to see what kind of applications will run on NOFN pilot which can be replicated for pan India operations. For pilots, the Department of Electronics and Information Technology (DeitY) has allocated `30 crore and the pilot is expected to be completed by March, 2013.The pilots will focus on providing e-health, e-education, G2C services, G2B services, and B2C services and the focus is also on making these applications run in multiple languages so that it can cater to respective states and rural folks can take maximum advantage by accessing information through any wireless access device.

The Services

Speaking on content, Kapil Sibal, minister for communications and IT says, “It is easy to build highway but the focus should be on how to build traffic.”

Commenting on NOFN applications, N Ravi Shanker says, “DoT and DeitY need to work hand in hand to ensure that telecom infrastructure or e-infrastructure is fully leveraged by variety of e-services.”

This is, to my mind, a huge public private panchayat partnership whereby public investment goes to create the infrastructure whereas private initiative is needed to give fillip to the ecosystem, he added.

NOFN will also be an ideal vehicle for central government projects, be it SSA (Sarb Shiksha Abhiyaan) or NRHM (National Rural Health Mission). The ministry of HRD can engage with the state government to utilize the infrastructure for K2-K12 students through text, audio, video, animation, and gaming. Even National Skills Development Corporation (NSDC) can use this platform for ITI, polytechnic, and vocational skills training for skills up gradation. In case of NRHM, more ailments can be done through online consultation as we have shortage of doctors and the government can also help in improving health care to the rural masses.

N Ravi Shanker, administrator, USOF says, “NOFN is a digital highway on which a whole lot of ICT services can ride, providing more opportunity to the content providers.”

After successful completion of pilot, BBNL is finalizing agreements with all executing agencies be it BSNL, Powergrid, or RailTel so that project execution can start in full swing. According to officials in the ministry, the agreement is planned to be signed by December, 2012 with all PSUs. It is expected that it will take a minimum of 24 months for completion of project though officially the project needs to be completed before October, 2013 but that is too steep a target and would not be possible.

Project Delay

There are many reasons why NOFN project will not complete on time. First, on the Right of Way (RoW), BBNL has to go a long way. Recently BBNL has signed MoU (Memorandum of understanding) with 13 states and 3 union territories so that the ground work of digging, laying cables, and reaching to various project destinations does not face any bureaucratic hurdles. The MoU is a tripartite agreement between DoT, the state government, and BBNL and will help the executing agencies getting blanket clearance from electricity board, Border Road Organization, NHAI, state PWD, BSF, Army, Forest Department, and other agencies.

The MoU was recently signed in the presence of Kapil Sibal, minister of communications and information technology, telecom secretary R Chandrasekhar, IT secretary J Satyanarayan, Ashok Gehlot, chief minister of Rajasthan and Vijay Bahuguna, chief minister of Uttarakhand. The objective of this MoU is to avoid these hurdles so that the NOFN project sees a smooth passage.

The 13 states are Tripura, Karnataka, Chhatisgarh, Kerala, UP, Andhra Pradesh, Arunachal Pradesh, Manipur, Jharkhand, Mizoram, Uttarakhand, MP, and Rajasthan; and the 3 UTs are Puducherry, Dadra Nagar Haveli, and Daman and Diu.

Though 16 states contribute 60% of gram panchayats, the earlier these MoUs are signed the better it is for early completion of projects as no executing agency will be allowed to start its work without signing of MoU. Not only this, the state government IT department, after signing the MoU, also needs to notify the concerned officials in district, block, and gram panchayat and the concerned departments so that there is no delay in terms of getting clearances from state agencies and work can move in full flow.

Second, the GIS mapping exercise will take time as all the executing agencies will collect data separately for the states allocated with respect to existing cable coordinates, joint location, tower coordinates, healthy fiber, new fiber route, overall terrain, optimization length of new cable route, and finalization of best location for fiber termination. All this is a mammoth exercise and will take 4-6 months. Once the data is collected, NIC will plot the coordinates along with latitude and longitude on a single map and this, in turn, will be shared by all the executing agencies.

Commenting on the physical survey, Anshul Gupta, executive director, corporate coordination, RailTel says, “There should be a uniform system requirement specification for GIS and this should be compatible with NMS and the maintenance tool as this will help in faster completion of the project.”

Third, once the physical survey is complete, the executing agencies will float tenders for execution, commissioning, installation of OFC in respective districts within the states or union territories. For faster deployment, BBNL should look at NOFN project as turnkey project along with 5-7 years of maintenance. So in order to make up for the time, BBNL should ask the executing agencies to simultaneously focus on physical survey and execution at the same time. But BBNL is planning to separately do these two activities which will further delay NOFN completion.

Fourth, the completion of GIS survey would also help BBNL to know about the exact requirements of equipment for NOFN. So BBNL can float RFP for equipment procurement and finalize the rate contract for GPON, OFC, splitter, jointing box, and power supply after physical survey. All this will further delay the project.

So in total, BBNL and executing agencies need to move at a fast pace so that project execution can start in 6 months time. And then it will take 18 months to do the complete OFC rollout.

Implementation Challenges

In terms of rural deployment, NOFN is first of its kind project in the entire world in terms of its reach and scope. Till date, the government of India has signed Memorandum of Understanding (MoU) with 13 states and 3 union territories thereby reaching 46 percent only. BBNL still has to go a long way and has to get MoUs signed with 15 states and 4 union territories so that ground work of digging and laying cables does not face any bureaucratic hurdles. The earlier the government signs these MoUs, the better it is for the government to complete this project on time otherwise there will be cost and time overrun.

BBNL has to ensure that the executing agencies quickly get access to those infrastructures so that one can speed up execution. Also both BBNL and executing agencies should finalize equipment RFP and project execution RFP at the earliest.

Once this project starts, there would be an acute shortage of manpower and equipment resources. The executing agencies should look at this aspect on a priority basis and start gearing to meet the future requirements.

PGCIL has already taken a lead in this direction and the company is planning to recruit around 350 people, says Ashwani Jain.

So completion of NOFN project by October 2013 is an uphill task, so BBNL should come up with a phase wise plan so that correct steps can be taken if there is any slippage. Even the government should see that the project is completed on time so that cost overrun can be minimized.