Centre to give automatic ‘Right of Way’ permissions for BharatNet project

Government entities, such as public works departments, will now automatically give permissions to lay down optical fibre in rural areas under the BharatNet Project after the central government notified the initiative as a “special project” in “public interest” under the Telecommunications (Right of Way) Rules, 2024, that came into effect on January 1.

No access fee will have to be paid to public entities, but permissions will still be required for RoW over private property, and applicable fees and charges will need to be paid.

“In exercise of the powers conferred by sub-rule (1) of rule 12 of the Telecommunications (Right of Way) Rules, 2024, the Central Government, in public interest, hereby notifies the “BharatNet”, as a special project for the establishment of telecommunication network,” the gazette notification issued on January 1 stated.

Under Rule 12 of the RoW Rules (notified in September), the central government can notify projects as “special projects” in “public interest” for which all permissions required for establishing the overground or underground network will be “deemed to have been granted” and the digital portal will automatically generate a “deemed permission” for such applications. The public entity in charge will provide the terms and conditions for this “deemed permission” within seven days.

“BharatNet has been a high priority for the Indian government’s digital expansion as in combination with 5G, it will serve the connectivity needs of India’s massive rural expanse. The project has been underway for some time, and is known to face RoW challenges, mostly due to delay in permissions from multiple states and panchayats. This notification will help streamline the RoW timelines for this project, given that the RoW rules aim to ensure a single window clearance across multiple Indian authorities,” Aprajita Rana, partner at AZB & Partners, said.

Minister of state for communications Pemmasani Chandra Sekhar had informed the Lok Sabha in November that the government had faced RoW issues in multiple states while expanding telecom infrastructure in rural and remote areas.

The seamlessness for granting permissions will work only if authorities at state level also coordinate, Rana said. “While the rules provide for linking portals of other departments with the central portal, it is not yet clear how it will practically play out,” she added.

The BharatNet scheme was set up as the National Optical Fibre Network (NOFN) by the UPA II government in October 2011. Its original goal was to connect 2,50,000 gram panchayats in the country with optical fibre within two years of its inception but the deadline has been revised multiple times. The goal was later revised to also include villages without gram panchayats.

The project is funded by the Universal Service Obligation Fund (USOF), now called the Digital Bharat Nidhi. The initial cost was estimated to be ₹20,000 crore and a “similar amount” was expected in private investment to complement the NOFN infrastructure.

To be implemented in three phases, the cabinet had approved a funding of ₹42,068 crore for the first two phases. Until the end of 2023, ₹39,825 crore had been disbursed under the project, as per the official USOF website. Additionally, the programme was amended at a cost of ₹1,39,579 crore to address shortcomings of the earlier version of the project, Sekhar had informed the Lok Sabha in November.

According to the official USOF website, as on December 2, 2024, 2,14,289 gram panchayats had been connected through the BharatNet project against the planned network of 2,22,343 gram panchayats in the first two phases.