The Nepal Telecommunications Authority (NTA) has yet to start work on a plan to expand broadband access in the country as the government has yet to approve the spending, the Himalaya Times reports. The authority had planned to use the money collected by the Rural Telecom Development Fund (RTDF) to construct the District Optical Fibre Network Programme. However, an official at the NTA said the authority has not been able to start the project because it has not received a proper response from the Ministry of Information and Communications. With the delay in the start of the project, the target to complete the programme by 2014 is almost impossible, the official said. The project aims to construct an internet service offering 256 kbps in 38 districts and their rural communities by 2014. The government had included the broadband project in the budget for the current fiscal year.About NPR 5 billion has been collected by the RTDF via contributions from five telecom service providers.
