• Investment World
• eWorld
• Brand Line
• Mentor
• Life
• Canvas
• Praxis
• Urban Pulse
• Brand Quest
• The New Manager

Stocks

• Quotes
• SE Diary
• Scoreboard
• Open-End Mutual Fund

Cross Currency

• Rates
  
  

Shipping

• Ports
  
  

Archives

• Yesterday
• Datewise
• Resources
• In Focus
• In Depth

Group Sites

• The Hindu
• The Hindu ePaper
• Business Line
• Business Line ePaper
• Sportstar
• Frontline
• The Hindu eBooks
• The Hindu Images

Our Bureau

New Delhi , Dec. 8

The Lok Sabha today passed a Bill enabling cellular mobile service providers to get financial support from the Universal Services Obligation Fund for offering mobile services in rural and remote areas. At present, the USO fund is mandated to support only fixed line telephone in rural areas. However, with wireless technologies offering cheaper and more affective means of communications, the Government had introduced an amendment to the Indian Telegraph Act in Parliament to enable the fund to be used for supporting cellular services.

Replying to a debate on the Indian Telegraph (Amendment) Bill, the Communications and IT Minister, Mr Dayanidhi Maran, said that it was necessary to provide support to the mobile operators in order to replicate the urban success of telecom services in rural areas.

The subsidy would be given for a period of five years to cover nearly 2.5 lakh villages in remote areas. Some members expressed concern that the support to cellular operators may divert money from the USO fund, primarily created to finance fixed line projects by BSNL and MTNL.

More Stories on : Telecommunications | Policy | Rural Development

Article E-Mail :: Comment :: Syndication :: Printer Friendly Page

Stories in this Section
Oracle ups open offer price, size for i-flex Solutions

Copyright © 2006, The Hindu Business Line. Republication or redissemination of the contents of this screen are expressly prohibited without the written consent of The Hindu Business Line