Govt signs pact with United Telecom for Goa Broadband Network

Panaji, Nov 6 (UNI) In yet another public-private-partnership initiative to promote e-governance, the Goa government today signed an agreement with a three-member consortium led by Bangalore-based United Telecom Limited (UTL) for setting up a ultra-high speed 10 Gbps broadband network in the island state.

Goa Department of Information Technology director M N Rao inked the pact with the Bangalore company's chief excecutive officer Dr P Ramamohan Rao in presence of Chief Minister Pratapsingh Rane and the IT minister Dayanand Narvekar at the secretariat complex at Porvorim.

The Rs 150 crore network serves the citizens with highspeed internet with value added services with optical fibre backbone. The services included providing facility for payment of different bills to the government, issue of various certificates and land records.

All the government offices would also be linked through a state data center to promote e-governance offering more than 600 services.

M/s UT Starcom India telecom Private Limited and M/s Railtel are members of the consortium led by the UTL engaged in undertaking the network which would be ready by the end of next year.

Initially, the network would be provided at the state, district and taluk level within 120 days from today and village Panchayat level 100 days there on and and household level by December next, according to Mr Rao.

Every household availing the two to 100 Mbps highspeed intranet connectivity would be charged a monthly fee ranging from Rs 250 to Rs 270.

The services includes - voice telephony, cable TV/IPTV, online health care and educational services, entertainment, movies on demand besides 200 government services to the needy.

The government also would be provided with all these services besides emergency management and warning systems apart from facilitating it with e-enabled services.

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