The Executive Committee of the National Economic Council (ECNEC) has approved a project to establish a third submarine cable system as a reliable and effective international telecommunication infrastructure for Bangladesh with a view to expanding the international telecommunication system. It will cost 693 crores 16 lakh 71 thousand rupees, reports BSS.
The project was approved at a meeting chaired by ECNEC Chairperson and Prime Minister Sheikh Hasina at the Sher-e-Bangla Nagar NEC conference room in the capital on Tuesday. The Prime Minister joined the virtual meeting from her official residence Ganobhavan.
At the end of the meeting, a member of the General Economics Department of the Planning Commission. Shamsul Alam told reporters at a virtual briefing that the ECNEC meeting had approved four projects at a total cost of Tk 2,115 crore. Of the four projects approved by ECNEC, one is new and the remaining three are revised.
Mamun-al-Rashid, a member of the Planning Commission’s Physical Infrastructure Division, stated Bangladesh Submarine Cable Company Limited (BSCCL) will implement the third submarine cable installation project from October 2020 to June 2024.
He said the SEA-ME-WE-6 submarine cable from Singapore to France will have a bandwidth of 12 Tbps and would extend through the Indian Ocean, the Arabian Sea, and the Red Sea to the Mediterranean. The cable will have a core landing station in Singapore, India, Djibouti, Egypt, and France. The Bangladesh branch will extend through the Bay of Bengal to Cox’s Bazar Cable Landing Station.
They also maintained that Saudi Arabia, India, Nepal, and Bhutan had expressed interest in buying bandwidth from Bangladesh. Officially, the states of Bhutan and India’s Tripura have proposed, while informally Saudi Arabia and Nepal have expressed interest.
