The Cabinet Committee on Economic Affairs has given in-principle approval to the Bangladesh Computer Council under the Department of Information and Communication Technology to sign an agreement with two investment firms to establish high-speed internet connections in 2600 unions of the country under the ‘National Information and Communication Technology Infrastructure Development (Info-Government 3rd Phase) project. This approval was given in the 8th meeting of the Cabinet Committee on Economic Affairs and the 12th meeting of the Cabinet Committee on Government Procurement.
The Finance Minister AHM Mustafa Kamal presided over the meeting virtually. After the meeting held on Thursday (March 30), Additional Secretary of the Cabinet Division Syed Mahbub Khan confirmed this information to the journalists.
He informed that 3 proposals were presented for the approval of the Cabinet Committee on Economic Affairs and four for the approval of the Cabinet Committee on Public Procurement. All proposals were approved.
Among them, the first of the two proposals under the National Information and Communication Technology Infrastructure Development (Info-Government 3rd Phase) project is for the establishment of high-speed Internet connections in 1,293 Unions and for the maintenance, repair, upgradation, replacement, operation and revenue sharing of the corresponding Internet infrastructure. Draft PPP agreement with Communications has been given in-principle approval. The second proposal gave in-principle approval to the draft PPP agreement with the private investment firm ‘Fiber@Home’ for the establishment of high-speed internet connections in 1,307 unions and related internet infrastructure maintenance, repair, upgradation, replacement, operation and revenue sharing.
It may be noted that, according to the regular report of BTRC, the telecommunication regulatory body in Bangladesh, the total number of internet users in the country was 12.5 million at the end of last February. Among them there are 1 crore 18 lakh broadband internet subscribers. Despite the increase of lakhs of mobile connections in that month, the number of broadband subscribers remained stable for three consecutive months, i.e. from December to February.