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Shri Dayanidhi Maran, Minister of Communications & Information Technology has said that the government is keen that the benefits of connectivity are increasingly delivered to India's rural population. Mobile telephony has a positive and significant impact on economic growth, and this impact may be twice as large in developing countries to that of developed countries. The policymakers are interested in bridging the 'digital divide' to boost growth as mobile phones are the most effective means of doing so. He assured that the Government would accord high priority to all the matters which promote telecom growth in the country. Shri Maran said this while addressing the inaugural session of the Cellular Summit 2005, organised by the Cellular Operators Association of India, here today. The event was also marked by the launch of low cost handsets introduced by Motorola to suit the Indian market.
Shri Maran called upon the Private Cellular Operators to reduce the roaming charges. He said "Mobile charges for roaming are very very high, I think they should be much lower than existing rates. BSNL does not charge for roaming. Why can't the private operators take this initiative to bring them down". He further stated that Government on its part will do everything to remove all the hurdles coming in the way of growth of telecommunication. But the operators must also reciprocate from their side". He further said, "Don't waste your time in Delhi making rounds to the Ministry. Go to the rural areas and connect India. We on our part will do everything to see that all hurdles are removed".
Shri Maran further said that the growth and achievement of mobile services in the country has been commendable. The mobile industry has a compound annual growth rate of 85% per annum during the last 6 years. Tariffs have dropped continuously by around 37% every year during the last 4 years. The reason attributable to the high growth rate is that wireless has several inherent advantages of faster and economic rollout. Given the advantages of mobile telephony, special efforts are presently underway to encourage mobile operators to reach out and cover the rural and under-served areas. To meet the increasing demand of spectrum users, efforts are on to get the spectrum released from other spectrum users for public telecom services.
RM/AMA- 260405 COAI Summit
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