PM launches first phase of Goa Broadband Network

Panaji, Dec 27 (UNI) Prime Minister Manmohan Singh today launched the first phase of the Goa Broadband Network (GBBN) linking the capital city with two districts and eleven taluk headquarters as part of promoting e-governance and transparency in the administration.

Dr Singh inaugurated the network at the Porvorim State Secretariat Complex here, in presence of Governor S C Jamir, Chief Minister Digambar Kamat and IT Minister Dayanand Narvekar among others, soon after his arrival via Dabolim airport.

Claimed to be first-of-its-kind in the country, the project, mooted under the Private-Public-Partnership (PPP) model, with the Government spending nothing, would connect 100 village Gram Panchayats with underground cable by this year end and the rest of the villages by March 31.

The citizens will enjoy ''a truly converged wide area network'' through GBBN with all value-added services, including high speed connectivity, IP telephony or video phone within the state, IPTV, video and data encapsulated in IP pockets across the state.

The State Government has signed a memorandum of understanding (MoU) with Bangalore-based ICT solutions company -- United Telecoms Limited -- for laying the underground optical fibre cable and providing the people with various value-added services through the service centres at a nominal fee.

The network connects the state headquarters to the district and taluk headquarters with 10 GBPS speed. The taluk headquarters will in turn be connected with every village Panchayat at 1 GBPS speed.

All the households will be connected with 2 to 10 MBPS speed depending on the need and demand. All the government, semi-government organisations and corporations will have 1 GBPS connectivity.

The project envisages provision of services to the Government such as IP telephony, on-line transaction portal, on-line education, healthcare, on-line booking and video conferencing, besides facilitating payment of taxes and bills and processing of various applications for issuing certificates.

It also provides for BPO, call centres, KPO and PCO services, besides promoting e-learning, distance live and class room education, diagnosis and advice from hospitals and preventive health care from doctors, leave alone video on demand, broadcast TV and broadband connectivity.

Governor S C Jamir is hosting a dinner in the honour of the Prime Minister who is staying at Raj Bhavan.

UNI