The government on Wednesday nearly doubled the budget to Rs 24,664 crore for laying an alternative communications network for the defence services. Under the project, the country has been divided into seven regions and around 60,000 KM of optical fibre will be laid.

The government on Wednesday nearly doubled the budget to Rs 24,664 crore for laying an alternative communications network for the defence services. The budget for the Network For Spectrum (NFS) project has been raised by Rs 11,330 crore, an official statement said. The NFS project aims to build an exclusive communication network for the armed forces. With the additional allocation, the total project cost is now Rs 24,664 crore. It was approved by the Cabinet Committee on Infrastructure in July 2012.

The NFS project, which is being implemented by state-run telecom operator BSNL, will be completed in 24 months, the statement said. The project was formulated in 2010 after the Ministry of Defence and the Department of Telecommunications agreed that the former will vacate 2G and 3G spectrum, and in return, the latter committed to set up an exclusive network for communication among the armed forces.

It will be a countrywide secure, multi-service and multi-protocol converged next generation network based on exclusive and dedicated tri-services optical transport backbone. Under the project, the country has been divided into seven regions and around 60,000 KM of optical fibre will be laid.