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ShareTo cover 2 lakh villages
NEW DELHI: Aiming to expand mobile services to about two lakh villages, the government on Wednesday said it would install around 11,000 more mobile phone towers in next one and a half years.
The Department of Telecom (DoT) would soon start phase-II of expansion of providing mobile services in the rural areas that would cover all habitats with population of 500, the concerned ministry said.
Details of the scheme, under which these towers are to be installed, are being worked out. In the first phase of this scheme, the department is installing about 7,900 towers out of which state-owned telecom company BSNL is installing more than 6,000 towers, followed by Reliance Communications Infrastructure Ltd, GTL Infrastructure Ltd and others.
Of these 7,900 towers, about 1,100 towers have already been installed and some of them have started offering mobile services. Rest of the towers will start operating by the end of this year.
These towers are being installed in 500 districts in 27 states and are being supported by the Universal Service Obligation Fund (USOF), it said.
