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.
