http://www.igovernment.in/site/tiff-delays-gbbn-project/
Tiff delays Goa broadband project May 13, 2008 By Pravin Prashant New Delhi: A major tiff between the Goa administration and the United Telecom Ltd (UTL) over last mile connectivity was hampering commissioning of services to citizens. Admitting that there were some differences the UTL spokesperson told iGovernment, "Minor technical issues on last mile connectivity is pending and things that will be sorted out within a fortnight if both the parties sit together." Earlier the Goa Government had sent a show cause notice to the UTL for making undue delay in the project. UTL is the PPP partner for Goa Broadband Network (GBBN) project. Confirming receipt of the notice, a UTL spokesperson said the reply to the government notice has been sent recently. The hi-profile Goa broadband project, India's first triple play citizen centric network was inaugurated by the Prime Minister Dr Manmohan Singh in December last year. Speaking to iGovernment, the state Director IT SR Seth said, "We cannot afford to delay the project as several extensions have already been given to UTL. The show cause notice has been issued to the company for non compliance of the project deadline." The Goa Broadband Network is unique in the sense that no other Indian state has so far set up this kind of high bandwidth network with the aim of empowering the citizen and enabling online government to government, government to citizen, and government to business transactions. Seth further stated that while the Goa government is ready with the computerisation of most of its departments, data center and majority of citizen services, the state government has not been able to rollout citizen services, thanks to the delaying tactics of UTL.
