The home ministry has dismissed a telecom department (DoT) proposal to provide satellite-based communications to beef up surveillance in India's Maoist hotbeds, calling it an unviable "high-cost option".
Instead, it has asked the administrator of the Universal Service Obligation Fund (USOF) to expeditiously modify the Indian Telegraph Act (Amendment Rules) to award the contract to BSNL on a "nomination basis" to roll out GSM networks in these troubled regions, waiving the requirement of an open bidding process".
The USOF, which subsidises telecom infrastructure in rural India and also supports the development of new products and services to improve broadband connectivity, is made up of funds from all telecom operators.
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