The Hindu Business Line : `Private sector must play bigger role in rural telephony'

THE Minister of State for Communications and Information Technology, Dr Shakeel Ahmad, has called upon the private sector to play a greater role in the facilitation of rural telephony across the country.

"More efforts" are needed from the private telecom players in this regard, he said.

Dr Ahmad was speaking at a function organised here on Monday by the Confederation of Indian Industry (Eastern Region) and Airtel to commemorate 10 years of cellular telephony in the country.

Ten years ago, on August 23, 1995, the first cellular telephone call was made by the then Chief Minister of West Bengal, Mr Jyoti Basu, from Kolkata to Mr Sukh Ram, the then Union Minister for Telecommunications, in New Delhi.

Dr Ahmad said the telephone users' base in the country, both cellular phone and landline users, was expected to go up to around 250 million by end-2007, from around 100 million at present.

While the tele-density in the urban areas is 10 per cent at present, in the rural areas it is 1.74 per cent.

Of the six lakh villages in the country, about 5.4 lakh have already been connected by telephone. The rest would be connected by the end of 2006, he said.

In his address, the Joint Managing Director of Bharti Tele-Ventures Ltd, Mr Rajan Bharti Mittal, said the telecom sector had played a tremendous role in reaching the benefits of liberalisation to the masses. With the cellular telephone ba

se in the country now hovering at around 60 million and a monthly addition of 2.5 million per month, it is possible to have a much larger base of cellular telephone users by end-2007 as targeted.

"A mobile phone has become like a wrist watch. Every person wants to have one when he leaves his home," he said.

Mr Mittal said, in this regard, the National Telecom Policy 1999 was the "most defining moment for telecommunications in India" when companies were permitted to migrate from fixed licence fee basis to a revenue sharing regime.

According to him, a 1-per cent growth in the telecommunications sector leads to a 3-per cent growth in the country's gross domestic product. To sustain growth in the wireless telecommunications arena, it would be imperative to ensure availability of spectrum, Mr Mittal said, and urged the Government to put in place an appropriate spectrum policy.

He also urged the Government to look into issues pertaining to taxation as well.

Mr B.L. Raina, Deputy Chairman of CII (Eastern Region), spoke on behalf of consumers and presented a case for lowering the rates of cellular telephony further. "The services that are offered need to be charged at a far lower rate than now," he said.

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