INDIA: Pvt telecom Cos ignoring obligations?

Government officials say that private companies not providing service in rural areas

The Times of India
Sunday, August 15, 2004

LUCKNOW: Private telecom companies that have signed a contract before getting their licence in which they undertook that apart from making their mark in the more lucrative urban sectors, they would fulfil rural telecom obligations as well may soon find themselves in trouble.

Minister of state for communication and information technology, Shakeel Ahmad said they were contemplating taking action against private telecom majors who were shirking their responsibility of providing telecom connectivity in rural sector. Here to review the performance of the UP (East) circle on Saturday, he said that profit and loss were secondary to providing telecommunication linkages to even backwaters of UP.

Ahmad added that given the problem of low teledensity and high demand, UP had to be given special status. He said the government would meet the communication requirements of UP. In a bid to enhance network, UPA government has taken a decision that cable laying from the exchange can be extended to 5 km instead of the earlier 2.5 km only.

He asked the officials to provide data for at least three years giving in detail the progress in three areas that are of paramount concern for BSNL subscribers - over inflated billing, waiting list of connections and fault rate. "Success of the department can only be gauged by the departments ability to reduce the fault rate and shrink the gap in the waitlist," he stressed.

Currently the waitlist for basic phones in UP (East) is over one lakh. In terms of mobile phones there is over subscription at 4.51 lakh as against a capacity of 4.26 lakh. The circle has a waiting list of approximately 4 lakh mobile phones. To meet demand, Ahmad said that by year end the department would provide an additional 4 lakh phones taking the number to 8 lakh. However, given the current rate of progress in this sector this may be a challenging task as even after opening the registration for prepaid phones more than 10 months ago, the waitlist of 52,000 has not been cleared.

Talking on the issue of providing broadband services, he said that they were testing the facility and it may be available by December 2004. The broadband facility is a convergence of technology wherein services like the Internet, cable TV and telephone would be available via one channel. "Broadband systems entail a widening of the highway which means subscribers will experience non-congested traffic without systemic noise and much faster connectivity," he said.

Ahmad added a note of warning to the field staff saying that the maximum complaints are received from there. "In this highly competitive environment there is an urgent need for transparency and the department staff would need to change its attitude and behave as government employees with a permanent job," he emphasised. 

Date Posted: 8/15/2004