NTA and NTC agree to extend optical fiber installation

Kathmandu, August 15: The Nepal Telecommunications Authority (NTA) and Nepal Telecommunications Company Ltd (NTC) have signed an agreement to implement a project aimed at extending optical fibre installation in Gandaki and Lumbini provinces.

The project will be implemented under the Rural Telecommunications Development Fund (RTDF). The agreement was reached here amidst a program on Friday in the presence of Minister for Communications and Information Technology (CIT) Prithvi Subba Gurung and Secretary at the Ministry of Communications and Information Technology, Radhika Aryal.

NTA Chair Bhupendra Bhandari and NTC Acting Managing Director Sabina Maskey signed and exchanged the documents on behalf of their respective sides. Secretary Aryal directed the timely completion of the project, stating that it would be exemplary if completed on time. As said by NTA Chair Bhandari, in the past, UTL and Smart Telecom Company were assigned for the optical fibre installation under the RTDF, but they failed to fulfill their responsibility.

The project has a three-year term, and it is estimated to cost around Rs two billion. Bhandari pledged to ensure the implementation of the project in time. As he said, the project is vital for realising the government’s ambition of ‘Digital Nepal Framework’. The NTC Acting Managing Director said the Company had been continuously working on the expansion of the broadband optical fiber for the past nine years.

She said under the project, the optical fiber would be extended to 23 districts of Gandaki and Lumbini provinces, with the installation of around 1,900 kilometers of optical fiber in a total of 194 local levels.