New Delhi, May 17: In a bid to cover 2,34,000 villages, Reliance Communications (RComm) today said it has commenced the rollout of its rural infrastructure project for setting up 8,982 Base Terminal Stations (BTSs) in the remote areas of the country.

The company aims to launch its telecom services within two months, after provisioning of passive infrastructure in these locations.

''On completion, the programme will provide telecom services in 2,34,000 Indian villages which do not have any telecom connectivity at present,'' said RComm Chairman Anil Dhirubhai Ambani.

The company has also formed a special task force for the national rural rollout, the team for which will be responsible for completing this task within tight deadlines, as well as come up with attractive offerings to promote the growth of telecom services among the rural populi.

This announcement comes within a day of signing the Memorandum of Understanding for the Universal Service Obligation (USO) programme of the Department of Telecommunications (DoT).

With a subscriber base of 30 million, RComm plans to enhance its network coverage to 25,000 towns and 4.5 lakh villages by March 2008.

The company has earmarked a capex of 2.5 billion dollars (around Rs 11,000 crore) for its network expansion plans during 2007-08.


UNI