Delhi: Universal Service Obligation Fund (USOF) under Department of Telecommunications (DoT), signed a tripartite MoU with Prasar Bharati and Open Network for Digital Commerce to proliferate affordable and accessible digital services across the country. The objective of the MoU is to bundle broadband services with OTT and e-commerce platform for the rural India riding on BharatNet infrastructure under the USOF.
USOF has been instrumental in enabling highspeed broadband and mobile connections across Gram Panchayats (GPs) and villages in the country. This MoU will enable the bundled Prasar Bharati OTT as a service, including linear channels, Live TV and on-demand content, among the end consumers while USOF will ensure efficient and highspeed broadband services in rural and remote areas. The national public service broadcaster, Prasar Bharati, with a legacy content, consumer reach and brand recall, will source and produce content that will run on its OTT platform. In addition, the Open Network for Digital Commerce (ONDC), a leading player in digital infrastructure, will provide the technical expertise and necessary framework in enabling digital commerce in products & services. This will be expanded to cover more services like education, health, training, credit, insurance, agriculture amongst others.
The MoU was signed in the presence of Dr, Neeraj Mittal, Secretary (Telecom), Niraj Verma, Administrator, USOF, T. Koshy, MD & CEO, ONDC, A.K. Jha, ADG, Platforms, Prasar Bharati and Sunil Kumar Verma, Joint Secretary, DoT.
