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In the recent past Telecom sector has witnessed an impressive growth. Total number of phones reached 10 crore in April 2005. About 24 million connections have been provided in last one year (29 per cent increase of over last year). More than 2000 towns have been brought under cellular coverage in one year only against a total of 1702 till last year. All District Headquarters have been covered. The number of villages uncovered has been reduced to 59,527. Arrangements have been made to provide telephone on demand even in the 1685 commercially unviable SDCAs by December 2005. After the announcement of Broadband policy in October 2004, more than 4,00,000 connections in more than 100 towns have been provided and a roll-out plan has been prepared to provide Broadband on demand in 200 identified towns in next one year.
There has been a paradigm shift in the domain of connectivity. Shift in focus from landline connectivity to wireless connectivity. In fact now the number of wireless/mobile connections has marched ahead of landline connections. Similarly the private sector has entered the field of Telecom in a big way and is now having almost equal share of market compared to the Public sector.
Although India has the 5th largest network in the world, the tele-density has reached only 9.17 per cent from 7.08 per cent last year. The present level of tele-density only provides one connection for 10 people. This is considered to be very low compared to tele-density of more than 50 per cent in China and much more in other developed countries. The growing digital divide is also too evident. While the teledensity in urban areas has reached a level of 22-23 per cent, it is still stagnating at 1.6-1.7 per cent in the vast rural areas. Internet and Broadband services have not touched rural areas by and large.
Providing wider access has been one of the thrust areas of Government. To achieve this objective and priorities of the UPA Government, Department of Telecommunications (DoT) has embarked upon an ambitious plan to take tele-density to more than 20 per cent by the year 2007 as against 9 per cent envisaged in the 10th Plan. As a part of this ambitious plan, it is planned to add 40 million connections in the next one year (2/3rd increase over last year’s additions of 24 million). It is expected that 190 million connections would be reached by December 2006 and 250 million by 2007. BSNL will take almost 50 per cent share and will increase its total connections to 125 million by 2007. As a part of this plan, the roll-out plan has already been launched in West Zone and in North Zone. The roll out in the East & South has been planned in mid August.
Connecting All Villages
Government is continuously striving to connect all villages in the country by telecom facility to extend the benefits of planned development to the rural areas. Universal Service Obligation Fund (USOF) was set up in the year 2002 to provide support for providing connectivity to remote and rural areas. A Universal Service Levy is collected from Telecom operators for providing funds to USOF.
USOF has awarded the work to BSNL to provide connectivity to remaining unconnected villages. This will be completed by October 2007. The villages in difficult terrain, especially those of North Eastern States, and Jammu & Kashmir, will be provided connectivity through satellite or through WLL system. To cater to the requirement of big villages having a population more than 2,000 without any PCO, Government has decided to provide another VPT known as Rural community Phones (RCPs) in such villages. A total of 46,253 RCPs would be installed over next three years. Old technology MARR VPTs in around 65,000 villages has been replaced. The MARR VPTs in remaining 76,233 villages are planned to be replaced progressively by June 2006. To facilitate the ambitious roll out programme, in the rural areas modalities are being explored to make a provision for shared passive infrastructure in Mobile Services in rural areas through USO Fund support.
Due to historical reasons, there has been artificial division in certain states so far as dialing is concerned. These anomalies have been addressed by permitting Inter services area connectivity between access providers in the states of Maharashtra (Mumbai Metro and Maharashtra Telecom Circle Service Area), Tamil Nadu (Chennai Metro and Tamil Nadu Circle Service Area), Uttar Pradesh including Uttaranchal (U.P East and UP West Telecom Circle Service Area) and West Bengal (Kolkata Metro and West Bengal Telecom Circle Service Area). With this arrangement calls within the state in the above mentioned four states would be without prefixing ‘0’.
Telecom Equipment
Currently around 80 per cent of the total telecom equipments are being imported. The present growth chart would definitely translate into equipment requirement of about Rs. 125000 crore to Rs. 150000 crore. There will be additional requirement of the equipments for Broadband and other Valued Added Services. There is also a scope for additional market in the Asia Pacific Region. Hence a sound manufacturing base in India can help us in big way. DoT is planning to leverage the growth potential of Telecom sector in the country for promotion of setting up of manufacturing facilities in the country. A good start has already been made with Nokia, Ericsson, Elcoteq, Alcatel and LG etc. taking effective steps for setting up manufacturing facilities in India. This is going to be vigorously pursued by DoT.
Revival of ITI
The ITI, which was ailing, is now on the path of revival with the fresh infusion of funds of Rs. 1032 crore, technology transfer agreement with AlcaTel, and the order for 4 million lines on hand. New Manufacturing facility of ITI in Mankapur has already been inaugurated in first week of July and manufacturing facility in Raibareilly is also expected to commence operation very shortly. ITI will start with 300 stations per month with scaling up to 1200 stations per month by November 2005. Manufacturing of ADSL/DSL broadband equipments is on anvil in the Naini unit of ITI.
Broadband Penetration
Our country has very low Broadband penetration. Increased penetration of Broadband services is a must for rapid economic growth of the country and to percolate the benefits of ICT revolution to the masses. With this in view, Broadband Policy announcement was made in October 2004. The services were launched by BSNL in January 2005. So far, more than 4 lakh connections have been provided by various service providers across more than 100 towns. It is envisaged that more than 2 million broadband connections will be provided this year by public and private sector together.
It is planned to establish High Speed Public Tele-info Centres (HPTICs) in over one lakh villages across the country by 2007 to ensure that ICT applications reach the common man. This would be in keeping with the rural thrust of the National Common Minimum Programme. These Centres would serve as access points for delivery of wide variety of e-Governance services in education, health & agriculture sectors.
*Minister of Communications & Information Technology
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