Aksh Optifibre Limited, the New Delhi-based leading manufacturer of optical fibre, optical fibre cables and FRP rods, has bagged the contract for Package B of the National Optic Fibre Network (NOFN) backbone project for supplying optical fibre cables.
The project is aimed at connecting over 250,000 gram panchayats across the country and leading the charge towards empowering the heart of the nation for better e-governance, e-health services and better educational services at the grass-roots level. The project is scheduled to be completed by September 2015 and aims to provide high-speed broadband Internet to all the 250,000 gram panchayats with speed of up to 100 mbps to create a model of development and sow the seeds for an e-revolution in the rural parts of the country.
The NOFN Project is being rolled out by Bharat Broadband Network Limited (BBNL), the special purpose vehicle setup under the Department of Telecom. BBNL has divided the project into 6 packages – East, West, North, South, Central and Northeast – and separate bids have been accepted for all the 6 zones. The total value of this project has been set at Rs 20,000 crore.
After being awarded the contract, Mr. Chetan Choudhari, Managing Director Aksh Optifibre Ltd., said, “Aksh has always wanted to be a part of this propitious project and NOFN is in line with our company’s ever growing commitment to creating a better and connected world. This project should hopefully usher in a new wave of opportunities for the people living in rural parts of India giving them better access to governmental services, healthcare and, above all, education to youngsters.”
According to a recent study published by the World Bank, a 10 per cent increase in broadband speeds leads to 1.38 per cent increase in GDP. The NOFN Project hopes to connect over 250,000 Gram Panchayats spread across 6,600 blocks and 641 districts for better and faster implementation of various e-governance projects initiated by the Department of Information Technology besides the services for rural areas by the private sector.
The current order, which is worth more than Rs 200 crore, will surely have a huge impact on Aksh’s bottom line and substantially increase its footprint on the Indian domestic market. According to Mr. Satyendra Gupta, Chief Financial Officer, Aksh Optifibre Limited, “As of now we are exporting 70 per cent of our total produce. This is significant considering the fact that other OFC manufacturers are struggling on the international markets.” He also said that all their manufacturing facilities have been retro-fitted to assist with the production of Optical Fibre Cable (OFC) for the NOFN Project. This will give them an additional boost of 25 per cent on their overall production capacity across their plants.
