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With a view to give thrust to the rural telephony, the Department of Telecom has planned to set up 76,000 Public Tele-Info Centres (PTICs) and 5,000 High Speed PTICs in the first phase so as to provide broad band connectivity in the rural areas. The support under the Universal Service Obligation (USO) Fund is being utilised for replacing the 1.84 lakh Multi Access Radio Relay (MARR) based Village Public Telephones (VPTs) which will be completed by the midst of year 2006. A sum of Rs. 700 crore has already been disbursed, under the USO Fund, by following a transparent and benchmark-based support through open bidding process. The required additional amount of Rs. 2,500 crore is expected to be spent during the current financial year for which the Finance Ministry’s approval has been sought. This was stated by the Minister of Communications & Information Technology, Shri Dayanidhi Maran, while addressing the Economic Editors’ Conference 2004, here today. The Minister further said that more than 5.20 lakh villages have been provided with telephone connectivity.
Speaking further on rural telephony, Shri Maran stressed the need to bring down the gap in tele-density between rural and urban areas. “The tele-density in the rural areas is only about 1.67% as against 24% in urban areas. This gap needs to be minimised and our primary focus has to be on rural areas”, he said. The Minister stated that it would be wrong to presume that all the rural phones would be loss-making ones, as there is immense untapped rural potential for the growth and expansion of telecom network where nearly 50% of the country’s rich and well-off reside. The rural India also contributes more than 50% of the total GDP. Therefore, entering into rural areas by the operators may be a profitable venture in the medium and long-term scenario, Shri Maran said.
Listing out other priority areas, the Minister said, “Spectrum being a scarce resource is going to be a serious constraint in expanding wireless network. This requires judicious allocation and management. Broadband connectivity and creation of manufacturing base are other areas of priority which would contribute to the growth of the Indian economy in the long run”.
While assuring that the policy of Government to allocate spectrum will remain technology-neutral, Shri Maran announced that the automated spectrum management system is expected to commence from next month. Efforts are on to get excess spectrum released from other users such as Defence, etc., he said.
The telecom sector, in the next 2-3 years, is likely to have more than Rs. 160,000 crore investment for its expansion. This large investment needs to be supplemented through FDI, the Minister said. The telecom sector, presently, is on the threshold of big breakthrough with an annual turnover of more than Rs. 60,000 crore. India has been ranked as the third most attractive destination after China and USA., Shri Maran said.
As regards the recently announced Broadband Policy, the main emphasis is on creation of infrastructure through various technologies that can contribute to the growth of broadband services. MTNL and BSNL have already planned to provide about 2 million connections by 2005, Shri Maran said.
On the IT sector, the Minister said that the government is working out a National e-Governance Action Plan which seeks to lay the foundation and provide impetus for a far-more pervasive spread of e-Governance to reach the common man particularly in farflung areas. The government is further putting together various elements that are required for leveraging the enormous power of ICT for the economic development of the country. The Government is keen to develop the hardware sector at par with the software sector. The Software Technology Parks of India (STPI) is in the process of setting up Bio IT Parks in several states through Public/Private Partnerships. STPI have also been playing a more proactive role both in expanding their activities to secondary cities as well as acting as incubators for software services.
A revolution is taking place silently in the Postal sector, the Minister said. India Post in its 150 years of its existence, is focussing on optimising the network and upgrading its capacity through induction of technology. The objective is to compete in the commercial environment by providing more efficient and value-added services. 79% of the Tenth Plan outlay of Rs. 1350 crore is earmarked for modernisation of the network and induction of technology. The target by the end of the Plan period is to computerise and network 7700 post offices. “I wish to go beyond this target and computerise all the twenty six thousand plus Departmental Post Offices. This will help create a ready-platform for providing e-governance facilities and other services, especially in rural areas, as envisaged in the National Common Minimum Programme since the Post Offices are perhaps the only government presence even in the remote areas”, Shri Maran said.
In order to enable the post office to compete effectively in the retail segment in the Small Savings sector, with similar service providers, the Minister has proposed to upgrade the facilities for retailing financial services through identified offices in the urban sector, through proper induction of technology and training. Dedicated business centres for handling corporate mails, including all pre-mailing activities, will be opened shortly in major cities. Parcel services will be given a fillip by establishing necessary infrastructure for their handling and transportation. A new logistics service will be introduced through out the country shortly. An existing product like e-past is being re-engineered to facilitate the corporate sector to utilise its commercial potential for conveniently communicating from one source to many. As regards Postal Life Insurance (PLI) efforts will also be made to remove the existing restriction on creating new products and on the customer base of PLI so that there is level playing field for them vis-à-vis other players in this sector.
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