The governmment will shortly clear a three-way partnership between Russia's NIS Glonass, BSNL and MTNL for delivering satellite-based navigation services in India, top officials in the telecom department told ET.
"A draft memorandum of understanding (MoU) between NIS Glonass, BSNL and MTNL for provision of satellite navigation services is being considered by the government," says an internal telecom department note reviewed by ET, which adds that the Russian government recently informed the foreign ministry about making the Glonass system available to the global community for free use.
The development comes on the heels of Russia's plans to roll out satellite-based information services akin to `GPS' on the Glonass system in international markets like India. Glonass is a Russian space-based system with 23 operational satellites deployed for delivering information services.
NIS Glonass is a wholly-owned subsidiary of the Russian public-private partnership company, Navigation-Information Systems, whose main stakeholders are Russian conglomerate JSFC Sistema (70.01%) and JSC Russian Space Systems (29.99%) .
Details of this tripartite alliance remain under wraps, but a top official in the Russian Embassy said formation of this three-way partnership with India's leading telecom PSUs would reinforce Indo-Russian collaborations in advanced technology.
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