Railways to help provide mobile phone services in villages

Thursday, 10 July 2003, 19:30 IST
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NEW DELHI: Indian Railways is set to provide mobile phone services in villages along its 63,000-km route following a tie-up between its communications wing RailTel Corp and state-run telecom major Bharat Sanchar Nigam Ltd (BSNL). RailTel and BSNL Wednesday entered into the tie-up to share bandwidth and other telecom infrastructure. "The alliance, initially for one year, is expected to help the railways provide mobile phone services all along its route network and set up kiosks on 7,000 railway stations," RailTel managing director A.K. Chopra said here after the signing of the agreement. "The alliance will help us spread telecommunication facilities to the masses in remote villages where the railways have access and fibre-optic connectivity," said BSNL chairman and managing director Prithipal Singh. "It will also supplement our network without duplicating infrastructure." Speaking on the occasion, Railway Minister Nitish Kumar expressed the hope that the alliance would "lead to BSNL and later the Mahanagar Telephone Nigam Ltd taking an equity stake in RailTel." Under the alliance, BSNL will explore the possibility of using RailTel's extensive fibre-optic cable network to meet its objective of providing better rural telephony.
Source: IANS
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