WCA September 2015

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66 Wire & Cable ASIA – September/October 2015
India Insight
Capacity expansion plans
for Sterlite
STERLITE Technologies is to invest in further capacity
expansion, targeting a major part of the BharatNet project.
The national optical fibre network (NOFN) or BharatNet, forms
the backbone of the Digital India initiative,
which aims to extend high speed
broadband throughout India.
“This [BharatNet] is a basic thing.
Fundamentally, it is to connect India.
There is a huge opportunity,” said Anil
Agarwal, non-executive chairman of
Sterlite Technologies.
On capacity expansion, company CEO
Anand Agarwal said: “Our facility is global.
We already have a capacity of about 22
million kilometres, which we are going to
take in stages to 30 million kilometres.”
Sterlite has already expanded capacity in
anticipation of the demand for more
Internet, he added.
“We are seeing that this demand is proportional to data
propagation, and has been increasing, year-on-year, in the
last two to three years.
“It was almost doubling every year, the
amount of data which was going
through the network,” he said.
“Capacity expansion for us has largely
happened. Three years ago we were 12
million kilometres, now we are 22 million
kilometres. So, for us, capacity is not
the issue in terms of supply optical
fibres.”
Of the optical fibre cable requirement for
the BharatNet project, Mr Agarwal said:
“Total OFC requirement for BharatNet
will be around 50 million kilometres,
which will largely be done by us.”
Sterlite Technologies – India
Website:
India
Insight
❍ Chief executive Anand Agarwal.
Photograph courtesy of Sterlite
Technologies