Union Cabinet approved Merger of BSNL- BBNL

Highlights:

• Recently, the Union Cabinet  approved the Merger of Bharat Broadband Network Limited (BBNL) with the Bharat Sanchar Nigam Limited (BSNL).
• BSNL will work as government’s executive arm and the ownership of assets will be with the government.
• Currently, BSNL has an optical fibre cable network of more than 6.83 lakh kilometre.
• Now, with the merger of BSNL and BBNL, BSNL will get an additional 5.67 lakh kilometre of optical fibre.
• 67 lakh kilometre of optical fibre has been laid in 1.85 lakh village panchayats of India using the Universal Service Obligation Fund (USOF).
• USOF is a Rs 55,000-crore strong reserve, that has been created to provide connectivity to rural and remote areas of India.
• The merger was first announced the merger of BBNL with BSNL in April 2022.
• BBNL is a special purpose vehicle (SPV), that was established to implement BharatNet project.

• Bharat Broadband Network Limited is also known as BharatNet.
• It is owned by government and provides broadband infrastructure.
• It was established by the Department of Telecommunications, under Ministry of Communications.
• It is involved in the establishment, management and operation of National Optical Fibre Network, under which government seeks to provide a minimum of 100 Mbit/s broadband connectivity across 250,000-gram panchayats in India.

• BSNL is headquartered in New Delhi.
• It works under the ownership of Department of Telecommunications.
• It was set up on October 1, 2000.
• BSNL is the largest government-owned, wireless telecommunications service provider in country.