9th July, 2003
Ministry of Railways  


RAILTEL AND BSNL SIGN MOU FOR WIDENING TELECOM SERVICE


The RailTel Corporation of India Limited (RailTel) and the Bharat Sanchar Nigam Limited (BSNL) signed a Memorandum Of Understanding (MOU)in the presence of the Minister of Railways, Shri Nitish Kumar and the Minister of Communications and Information Technology & Disinvestment on various areas of mutual cooperation at a function, here today.

The MOU was signed by Shri A.K. Chopra, Managing Director on behalf of RailTel and Shri Prithipal Singh, Chairman-cum-Managing Director on behalf of BSNL.

The MOU provides for sharing of bandwidth and other telecom infrastructure, improving coverage of BSNL’s Cell One mobile phone service to provide continuous coverage along the railway track by utilizing RailTel’s infrastructure and extension of telecom facility to rural areas using RailTel’s Optical Fibre Cable (OFC) network. In addition, BSNL will offer priority to RailTel for last mile and interconnect for its various telecom services.

While forming RailTel Corporation of India Limited, a PSU under Ministry of Railways, the Government of India also approved induction of Joint Venture (JV) partners keeping Railways’ equity as 51% minimum and directed that initially, PSUs of Department of Telecom (DOT) and PSUs of Ministry of Railways may be considered for induction as Joint Venture partners.

Based on the MOU, it has been deliberated that MTNL will consider equity participation and BSNL will join hands with RailTel for utilizing their synergies, infrastructure and services for bringing telecom revolution to the masses.

Speaking on the occasion, the Railway Minister Shri Nitish Kumar complemented RailTel and BSNL for entering into MOU to herald an era of unhindered countrywide expansion of Telecom. The Minister announced that negotiations were underway with his counterpart in the Communications Ministry for equity participation by BSNL and MTNL in RailTel. He also said that it has been decided that the Ministry of Railways would retain 51% equity in RailTel and the remaining would be shared by BSNL, MTNL and other public sector units in the Government. The Minister for Communications, Information Technology & Disinvestment, Shri Arun Shourie complemented both the public sector undertakings and was happy to state that it would revolutionise expansion of telecom services all over the country including the remotest areas.