Bharat Sanchar Nigam Limited (BSNL) will be upgrading the 2G mobile sites to 4G in Naxal hit areas. The overall cost of the project will be Rs 2,426 crore, confirmed Union Minister Anurag Thakur on Wednesday. According to a PTI report, the cabinet has approved for BSNL to take care of the 2G mobile sites to 4G in the Naxal hit areas across ten different states. Under the leadership of Prime Minister Narendra Modi, a Rs 2,426 crore worth of project has been approved by the cabinet to upgrade 2,542 2G mobile sites to 4G, said Thakur.
BSNL to Deploy Indigenous Developed Solutions
BSNL will be deploying indigenous developed solutions, including core network, radio network, and telecom equipment for upgrading the 2G sites to 4G. All of the 2,542 sites will be upgraded and run by BSNL, confirmed Thakur. These are the following states where BSNL will work in the Naxal hit areas — Chhattisgarh (971 mobile sites), Andhra Pradesh (346 mobile sites), Bihar (16 mobile sites), Madhya Pradesh (23 mobile sites), Maharashtra (125 mobile sites), Jharkhand (450 mobile sites), Odisha (483 mobile sites), Uttar Pradesh (42 mobile sites), West Bengal (33 mobile sites), and Telangana (53 mobile sites). BSNL will also be upgrading its current 2G/3G sites across India to 4G in the coming months. The state-run telco has ordered equipment for 6,000 mobile sites for now and is waiting for the vendor to complete it. For the unaware, BSNL had collaborated with TCS (Tata Consultancy Services) and C-DoT (Centre for Development of Telematics) to develop an indigenous 4G solution for its networks. The government wasn’t allowing BSNL to go ahead with a foreign vendor for the 4G rollout. That is why the state-run telco took a lot of time as none of the Indian technology firms was experienced with making core 4G network equipment and other related solutions. In August 2022, we might get to see BSNL’s 4G networks in some areas of the country.
