After missing March 31 deadline, the Telecom Ministry is planning to float a tender in next two weeks for providing wireless broadband connections to over 5 lakh villages in 18 months.

“Due to some internal issues it (issuing of tender) has been delayed. The work is almost finished from our side. Now this will be sent for legal vetting. I hope all this process will be completed within next two weeks,” a source in the Department of Telecommunications (DoT) said.

The USOF (Universal Service Obligation Fund) was set-up in 2002 to provide mobile services and broadband connectivity in rural and remote areas of the country. As of December 31, 2010, the fund had a total size of Rs 13,789.28 crore.

On a question whether BSNL will be given preference over other private service providers, he said, “BSNL has not been excluded from it. We are not saying that BSNL will not be a part of the process. What we are only saying that we cannot provide subsidy exclusively to BSNL that is for sure.”

USO Funds are raised through a Universal Service Levy (USL), which at present has been fixed at 5 per cent of the Adjusted Gross Revenue (AGR) of all telecom service providers, excluding value-added services like Internet, voice mail, e-mail, etc.

Under the ‘Rural Wireline Broadband’ scheme of USOF, a total of 2,61,413 broadband connections and 2,506 kiosks have been provided till January 31, 2011, in rural and remote areas.