Chandigarh, December 8
It’s a classic case of taxpayers’ money going down the drain. Despite over Rs 150 crore being spent on it, BSNL’s ambitious state-of -the-art scheme ‘Fibre to the Home’ (FTTH) — which allows high-speed broadband access and a host of other features — remains a non-starter in the Punjab circle.

The poor response to the initiative can be gauged from the fact that not even 100 connections have been subscribed in the past nine months under it.

In the Internet-savvy city of Chandigarh, the situation is even worse. Here, not even a single connection has been subscribed under the scheme which, surprisingly, is capable of providing very high-speed internet access (ranging from 1mbps up to 100 mbps).

Considered to be a game changer, the FTTH project, which has also been dubbed as the Next Generation Play Network by the telecom company, aims at providing video and audio services, IPTV and VOIP besides the usual internet and phone service through a dedicated fibre optical link from the exchange to the residence of a subscriber.

BSNL officials claim that around 100 connections have added across Punjab circle but those privy to the project reveal that majority of these are either with the bigwigs of the telecom company or installed at the residences of the “well-connected”.

A senior official, on condition of anonymity, revealed that the project has been “jinxed” from the word go, as even 9 months after laying of main cables and putting in place high-tech equipment at majority of telephone exchanges in Punjab, the project hasn’t really taken off.

“The tenders for laying the cables - from the exchanges to subscribers’ homes -haven’t been finalised yet”, said the official. Interestingly, the work of laying the cables was completed in the financial year 2009-10 and things haven’t moved much since then. Sources claimed that the project was “ill-conceived” and not backed by proper marketing and research. “Otherwise, one wouldn’t have got such a bad response after spending a whopping Rs 150 crore,” officials said. Admitting that the scheme was a non-starter, Naresh Sharma, GM, Telecom, said the fibre network has been laid on the main roads but extending it to the residences of subscribers would cost a whopping Rs 1 lakh per km.