Telecom projects funded by Universal Service Obligation Fund (USOF), under the Department of Telecommunications (DoT) are moving at a slowed pace. These are mandated to serve the needs for connectivity in aspirational villages, North-east, left-wing extremism affected areas, and other international-bordering states.

Telecom operators, including Bharti Airtel, Reliance Jio, and Bharat Sanchar Nigam (BSNL) are undertaking these projects worth Rs 50,000 crore. The lag in completion has also resulted in a fresh deadline for the projects.

In the North-East-1 project, of the 1,511 sites, only 402 mobile towers (27 per cent) have been installed as of 3 July, 2023. The agreement was inked by Bharti Hexacom (Airtel) and Reliance Jio had agreements with USOF in October 2021. In the North East-II project, where Airtel signed an agreement with USOF in December 2017 for installing 2,004 sites at a cost of Rs 1,655.66 crore, 1,358 towers have been installed till now (68 percent).

In Meghalaya, for a project worth Rs 726.65 crore for the installation of 889 towers, only 353 towers (40 per cent) have been installed as of July 3, 2023. The project has seen extension from 18 months (for completion) to 30 months as of September, 2022.

The only fully completed project is LWE-I executed by BSNL in August 2014 for 2,355 sites, at a cost of Rs 1,655.66 crore for 2G-based services in 2,199 locations.