State-owned Bharat Sanchar Nigam (BSNL) has deferred its plan for a revised public-private partnership model to provide broadband connectivity to gram panchayats under the BharatNet project, according to people aware of the matter.

The decision to put the plan in abeyance followed the merger of BSNL and Bharat Broadband Network (BBNL) in July this year, after which the telecom service operator is in-charge of the entire operations of BBNL. BBNL was a special purpose vehicle formed in 2012 to implement the BharatNet project.

“The merger has happened recently and at present we don’t see the need for going for PPP model for BharatNet project as it can be managed using BSNL’s expertise,” an official aware of the matter said, adding that the plan will be revived if the need arises in future.

The BharatNet project had received approval from the Cabinet in 2011 with an aim to connect 250,000 gram panchayats with optic fibre cable. Even after 11 years, it has not been able to meet its implementation targets as only 180,422 gram panchayats are service ready as on date, according to data by the department of telecommunications.

According to officials in the DoT, the reasons for slow implementation of BharatNet project can be attributed to poor coordination between different agencies involved in the project, right of way (RoW) permissions related issues, limited scope and experience of BBNL, among other things.

Also read: Investing in Debt Mutual Funds? Here are unseen risks that you should know

Simply put, the process of laying the fibre network to panchayats and finally to last mile involves different players and that was creating coordination problems.

At the time of announcing the BSNL-BBNL merger, communications minister Ashwini Vaishnaw had said, “coordination becomes difficult whenever 2-3 different organisations work in different directions on a similar project”.

“BSNL’s model (of involving micro entrepreneurs to ensure last mile network) has given us the way forward of a very high data consumption, very reliable network and a very coordinated move and we are confident it (BSNL-BBNL merger) would succeed,” Vaishnaw said.

In July last year, the government had floated a tender to involve private players to cover 361,000 villages including 137,000 gram panchayats across 16 states with a funding of Rs 19,000 crore. Despite the discussions with the government, the private players did not participate in the tender owing to disagreements on the revenue sharing model and other commercial terms.

The government is now aiming for the project to be completed by 2025 as against the earlier deadline of August 2023.