NTA to Hire Consulting Firm to Monitor Projects Under RTDF

Nepal Telecommunications Authority (NTA) is looking to hire a consulting firm to monitor the projects under NTA’s Rural Telecommunications Development Fund (RTDF), reports The Himalayan Times. The selected firm will monitor, evaluate and certify the progress of RTDF-funded projects for at least two years.

For this, NTA invited interested companies to send an expression of interest (EoI) recently.

Explaining this move, Min Prasad Aryal, spokesperson for NTA said, “As NTA lacks enough manpower and expertise to monitor and evaluate project progress, we decided to hire a consulting company for this purpose.”

The selected firm will need to establish a method to monitor and evaluate implementation of broadband Internet network and submit progress report of different projects to NTA in different phases.

NTA has been operating 18 broadband Internet projects in rural areas of the country under RTDF. These projects were awarded to Internet Service Providers (ISPs). They were given the charge to expand broadband Internet service in all rural areas across all 14 earthquake-affected districts within mid-July this year.

Aryal said, “All ISPs that have been undertaking RTDF-funded projects of NTA are required to submit progress report to NTA on a regular basis. The consulting firm will basically evaluate work progress of these projects and report to NTA.”

ISPs were also required to provide two percent of income to NTA. In total, NTA has collected Rs. 16 billion from ISPs.

Besides these projects, NTA under RTDF is also starting district-level optical fibre network connectivity project through Mid-Hill Highway, establishment or erection of towers including their operation and maintenance, making Information Communication Technology (ICT) accessible for people with disability.