Govt allocates Rs 18,413 crore to Department of Telecom

NEW DELHI: Government has allocated Rs 18,413.87 crore to the Department of Telecom to take up projects like network for defence spectrum and for refund to PSUs for surrendering spectrum.

As per the expenditure Budget, Rs 2,710 crore will be allocated for setting up of optical fibre base network for Defence in lieu of spectrum it has freed for commercial use.

The state-run telecom BSNL will get Rs 2,200 crore as a refund of 4G and CDMA spectrum that it surrendered.

MTNL surrendered 5 Mhz of CDMA spectrum that was put up for auction in Delhi and Mumbai and BSNL in around 8-10 telecom service area.

The Budget has provisioned for financial support of Rs 428.91 crore for loss making telecom firm MTNL in 2016-17. The support includes refund for minimum alternate tax (MAT), payment of interest on bonds and surrender of CDMA spectrum by MTNL. In current fiscal government has refunded Rs 492 crore as MAT to MTNL.

Provision to allocate Rs 500 crore to the sick public sector firm ITI as financial support for its revival. It will be also allocated additional Rs 80 crore as equity support.

For projects like national optical fibre network -- connecting 2.5 lakh village panchayats with high speed broadband and strengthening telecom networks in Northeast region and other schemes that get support from USO Fund, government will allocate Rs 2,710 crore in 2016-17.