Reliance Communications and Bharat Sanchar Nigam Ltd (BSNL) have bagged majority of the Universal Services Obligation (USO) fund-sponsored rural cellular project.
At the end of the third and final round of bidding, Reliance got access to 72 clusters of villages while the State-owned company got the contract to roll out cellular services in 58 clusters of villages.
Bids were invited by the Department of Telecom for offering mobile services across 2.5 lakh villages, which were divided into 81 clusters. While seven telecom companies had entered the fray, DoT has selected three operators per cluster.
The bids quoted are so aggressive that instead of paying the operators for rolling out services in rural areas, the Government stands to receive money. As per the bids quoted by the operators, the Government will get about Rs 10 lakh a year with most cellular companies quoting negative amounts. While this amount may be insignificant, what is interesting is that the Government was willing to give away Rs 800 crore annually to the winning operators at the beginning of the bidding process.
At the end of the third and final round of bidding, Reliance got access to 72 clusters of villages while the State-owned company got the contract to roll out cellular services in 58 clusters of villages. 
