BSNL, RailTel in pact to share infrastructure

State-owned Bharat Sanchar Nigam (BSNL) today said it has signed an agreement with public sector firm RailTel to execute various telecom-related projects through sharing of communications infrastructure.

This Memorandum of Understanding (MoU) facilitates execution of various projects of national importance such as defence, ERP (Enterprise Resources Planning), NKN (National Knowledge Base Network), etc., through sharing of their communication infrastructure, BSNL said in a statement.

This MoU is for three years, which can be extended.

It is envisaged that through this arrangement, both PSUs will implement the government's various pan-India IT and telecom projects.

As a first step, sharing of resources such as dark fibres and bandwidth between BSNL and RailTel is being taken up under the MoU.

RailTel Corporation of India (RailTel) is a public sector unit (PSU) under the Ministry of Railways. The corporation aims to create a nationwide broadband telecom and multimedia network in all parts of the country.