Vijayan’s K-Fon project, turning a reality still remains a dream

THIRUVANANTHAPURAM: Launched with much fanfare on June 5 this year, K-FON, the dream project of Chief Minister Pinarayi Vijayan, seems to have got stuck like many other government-backed projects.

Under the project, Kerala will be the first Indian state to have its own Internet service and aims at “connecting the unconnected”.

Kerala Fibre Optic Network (K-FON) was to provide free Internet access to around 20,00,000 below-poverty-line families and about 30,000 government institutions and schools in the state.

It’s a joint venture between the Kerala State Information Technology Infrastructure and the Kerala State Electricity Board with K-FON initially providing 1.5 GB of data per day at the speed of 15 MBPS for every household.

On June 5 during the launch, Vijayan said 17,412 offices and 2,105 homes were already connected and 9,000 homes were cabled.

And last week enroute the state capital during his statewide yatra, Vijayan said K-FON has now reached 18,063 offices and 3,715 homes.

In six months time after the launch, figures pointed out by Vijayan himself showed only a handful of new connections have been given.

The biggest problem for the smooth implementation of the project is paucity of funds, as the financial position of the state is in not good and things can go worse as the recurring annual charges, including repayments for the loans availed for this dream project, will soon be due making things more difficult.

Incidentally, the Congress-led opposition, especially Leader of Opposition V.D. Satheesan, had earlier alleged that this project cost was pegged at Rs 1,028 crore and after the tender process was over it was hiked to Rs 1,531 crore, which was violation as it was against what the then Finance Secretary K.M. Abraham in his order stated that for government projects there should not be a hike of more than 10 per cent while here it was a staggering 50 per cent excess.