Broadband
Rs 37-bn panchayat wifi plan by Mar ’19, IMG to meet today
MUMBAI: The central government is drafting an ambitious Rs 37-billion plan so as to cover around 5.5 lakh villages with wifi facility for all panchayats by March 2019, a senior Department of Telecom official has said. Also, data shared by the telecom minister Manoj Sinha showed that internet service has started in 33,430 gram panchayats as of 6 September.
The inter-ministerial panel (IMG) of the Telecom Commission is scheduled to meet on Friday to consider phase-2 of BharatNet project under which 1.5 lakh GPs are to be covered with high speed broadband network.
This month, the government expected to put out a tender for 2.5 lakh GPs (gram panchayats) to be covered so that 5.5 lakh villages would have had access to mobile broadband, the telecom secretary Aruna Sundararajan said, PTI reported.
The government expects to start broadband services with about 1,000 megabit per second (1 gbps) across 1 lakh gram panchayats by 2017-end.
Earlier, the plan was to provide 100 megabit per second connectivity to village panchayats, but, under the new BharatNet, the broadband speed has been enhanced 10 times to one gigabit per second at every panchayat level.
One lakh wifi will used under BharatNet service. The other 1.5 lakh need not be on BharatNet from Day 1. Once BharatNet was completed, the government planned to integrate all wifi backward with BharatNet, Sundararajan said.
At download speed of 1 gbps, an user can theoretically download a video equivalent to the size of a general Bollywood movie in about 2 seconds.
Under the new policy, the government will focus on linking some 40,000 villages and increase availability of regular Internet access facility to 70 crore people, from 30 crore, by 2022.
The secretary pointed out the pace of implementing BharatNet had accelerated by seven times in the last one month. Earlier, 150 installations a day were being done.
As of July 2017, 2,21,925 kilometres of optical fibre cable (OFC), covering 1,00,299 gram panchayats, were laid and 25,426 GPs provided with broadband connectivity.
The government, Sundararajan said, has already completed optical fibre rollout in one lakh GPs and is installing electronic equipment for commissioning of broadband services.
The department has crossed 61,000 GPs where electronic (equipment) have been installed. In the next 2-3 months, it will complete the installation as well as integration to the network. The network for one lakh GPs will be functional before the end of this year.
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Broadband
Tejas Networks names Arnob Roy as MD and CEO, overhauls top leadership team
The Bengaluru-based telecom gear maker reshuffles its entire top team even as quarterly revenue collapses by 83 per cent
BENGALURU: Tejas Networks is changing the guard at the top, and doing so at speed. The Bengaluru-headquartered telecom equipment maker has elevated Arnob Roy as managing director and chief executive officer, effective April 15, 2026, for a term running through to August 3, 2028, and in the same breath announced new appointments across operations and finance. The timing is pointed: the company is navigating one of the roughest patches in its recent history.
Roy steps up from his role as executive director and chief operating officer, a position he has held since March 2019. He brings more than three decades of experience in the high-technology sector across research and development, operations, and sales. His predecessor, Anand Athreya, resigned last year citing personal reasons and was relieved on June 20, 2025, leaving a gap at the top that has now been formally filled.
The numbers Roy inherits are sobering. Tejas posted a net loss of Rs 211.3 crore in the fourth quarter of fiscal year 2026, a near-194 per cent widening year on year from Rs 71.8 crore in the same period a year earlier. Revenue for the quarter collapsed 82.6 per cent year on year to Rs 333 crore, down from Rs 1,907 crore. EBITDA swung to a loss of Rs 118.2 crore against a profit of Rs 121.5 crore a year ago. The culprit is not hard to identify: Tejas has derived the bulk of its revenue from BSNL’s fourth-generation network project, delivered as part of a Tata Consultancy Services-driven consortium, and that roll-out is now winding down.
Roy, speaking during a post-earnings conference call with analysts, was candid about where the company has been. “The BSNL 4G network went live across 100,000 sites. We deployed our largest indigenous router networks in the country through the BSNL MAN network, as well as in the BharatNet Phase 3 network,” he said, adding that Tejas had also successfully rolled out its 400G and 800G DWDM equipment in domestic and international markets, and continued the deployment of what it describes as the world’s largest satellite IoT network through its vehicle tracking system solution.
The pivot to new revenue streams is already under way. Tejas has partnered with Japan’s Rakuten Symphony and NEC Corporation to push deeper into international markets, with several Open Radio Access Network trials ongoing, one of which concluded recently. The company is also diversifying across equipment categories and geographies to sustain momentum as the BSNL chapter closes.
To prosecute that strategy, Roy needs a full team around him. Preetham Uthaiah has been appointed chief operating officer, moving up from his current role as vice president of product management for wireless products at Tejas Networks. Uthaiah brings nearly 30 years of global experience spanning engineering, product management, and business development across India and the United States. Before joining Tejas Networks, he served as executive vice president of product management, marketing, and strategy at Saankhya Labs, and held senior roles at Tech Mahindra on both sides of the Atlantic. He holds an MBA from Arizona State University and a degree in electronics and communications from Karnatak University.
On the finance front, AVS Prasad has been approved as chief financial officer, effective May 16, 2026, succeeding Sumit Dhingra, who has resigned. Prasad, currently serving as finance controller at Tejas Networks, brings over 27 years of experience within the Tata Group across telecom, aerostructures, and defence. A company secretary and cost and management accountant by training, he has spent more than 15 years in senior finance roles including CFO and financial controller positions, with expertise spanning corporate finance, treasury management, regulatory compliance, internal audit, and governance.
New chief executive, new chief operating officer, new chief financial officer — all installed in a single move, at a moment when the company’s largest revenue source is drying up and the next chapter remains unwritten. Tejas Networks has placed its bets. Now it has to deliver.
