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India-Singapore land route proposed to cut bandwidth cost, says Dayanidhi Maran

P. S. Suryanarayana

SINGAPORE: India is for creation of a "cost-effective" Asian sub-regional network in the "telecom and bandwidth" domain.

Union Minister for Communications and Information Technology Dayanidhi Maran indicated this here on Friday during a media interaction.

Mr. Maran said Singapore had evinced interest in the idea of establishing a "land route," linking Kolkata, Myanmar, Bangladesh, Bangkok, Malaysia, and Singapore. Such a link would reduce the bandwidth cost between India and Singapore.

The issue, he said, was raised during his meetings with Singapore Ministers.

"Right now, the bandwidth cost is very expensive" and the link "is not fully utilised."

Asked if the initiative was to set up a regional fibre optic network, he said the focus now was on a land route, which could also serve as "a standby [for] the submarine cable."

Asked about the scope of his visit to Singapore and just-concluded tour of South Korea, he said the objective was to instil "confidence" among foreign entrepreneurs about the "security" of their potential investments in India in all sectors, including information technology and communications (ITC).

Mr. Maran said the discussions with South Korean Ministers centred on creating a joint-working-group mechanism on subjects ranging from Internet to e-governance.

Earlier, addressing the Institute of South Asian Studies and the Singapore Indian Chamber of Commerce & Industry, Mr. Maran said India was looking for investments from the City-State in core infrastructure sectors.

Noting that "the Changi Airport blinked too early in the [recent] Delhi airport bid," he said "the Chennai airport is available for private participation." This was an opportunity for the Changi Airport to explore now.

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India-Singapore land route proposed to cut bandwidth cost, says Dayanidhi Maran

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