NEW DELHI: A total of 97,480 km of National Optic Fibre Network (NOFN) is planned in the first phase out of the total envisaged – 244,729 km – in 36 states and union territories in the country.

The government had set a budget of Rs 20,000 crore for the project, but Ministry sources informed Indiantelevision.com that the cost had already escalated to Rs 30,000 crore.

Communications Minister Ravi Shankar Prasad told the Parliament that work was at various stages in all the planned regions.

The NOFN aims to connect all Gram Panchayats in the country through optical fibre cable (OFC) by bridging the connectivity gap between Gram Panchayats and Blocks for providing broadband.

Meanwhile, the number of fibre to the home (FTTH) and fibre to the building (FTTB) subscribers in Europe has soared, increasing by 50 per cent over the 12 months ending December 2014, according to the latest update to the FTTH Ranking announced at a press conference held at the FTTH Conference in Warsaw.

There are now nearly 15 million FTTH/B subscribers in the European continent (14.5 million) – not including Russia and the Ukraine, which would add a further 14.8 million homes to the total (Source: FTTH market panorama prepared by IDATE for FTTH Council Europe).