The government has collected Rs.23,225.10 crore under the Universal Service Obligation Fund (USOF) till September, and disbursed Rs.6,245.54 crore till October, Communications and IT Minister Ravi Shankar Prasad said Wednesday."A total amount of Rs.2,010 crore has been utilised from the fund under the National Optical Fibre Network (NOFN) to provide telecom services in rural and remote areas of India. The project is being implemented by three central Public Sector Undertakings," he said in a written reply to the Lok Sabha.The three CPSUs are Bharat Sanchar Nigam Limited, Railtel and Power Grid Corporation of India Limited.
"There have been delays by telecom companies in implementing the USOF schemes. The government imposed liquidated damages (LD) for delays in rollout as per terms and conditions of the agreements signed by the executing entities with USOF," Prasad said.
An amount of Rs.1.72 crore towards LDs has been recovered from telecom companies and infrastructure providers implementing the shared mobile infrastructure scheme with the support of USOF, for delays in implementing, Prasad said.