A. Raja, the Union Minister for Communication and Information Technology(C&IT), has called upon the telecom industry to join hands with government for intensifying the growth of rural telecom sector. Expressing satisfaction on share of private players in the rural telcom segment, the Minister said that continued participation will help achieve the target of 40% rural teledensity well before the set timeline of May 2014. The Minister was addressing the telecom industry on the occasion of celebrating landmark achievement of 500 Million telephones in India.
Congratulating the industry for achieving the stupendous feat, the Minister said that the target of achieving 500 millions connections by end of the year 2010 looked quite formidable three years ago. Advocating competitive environment for transparent and efficient services, the Minister added that policy enablers like mobile number portability, introduction of more number of service providers will further infuse the competition in the already started price war.
Here is text of Minister’s Speech
It is a pleasure for me to address the gathering on the event “India Celebrating 500 millions” signifying the success story of Indian Telecom sector. About 3 years back when I took the charge of Telecom Ministry, the target of achieving 500 millions connections by end of the year 2010 looked quite formidable to me as new subscriber addition per month was only about 7 million. However, the conducive Government policies and the zeal of industry in the last three years have taken monthly addition to about 15 million. This has helped in putting the name of Indian telecom sector on the world map as we have crossed the milestone of 500 million connections in the month of September 2009 and achieved an over all teledensity of 44%.
I congratulate the industry in joining hands with Government in achieving such a stupendous feat much before our set timeline. With 470 million mobile connections in September 2009, we are well poised to cross yet another landmark of 500 million mobile connections before end of this year.
Competition not only promotes efficiency but simultaneously reposes the user’s confidence in the service provider. I am proud that the telecom sector is now flourishing in much transparent and competitive environment as a result our service providers are in a position to offer the lowest tariff to the user with world class telecom facilities. Tariff schemes as low as 1 paise per second and in some cases ½ paise per second are now available. I believe that policy enablers like mobile number portability, introduction of more number of service providers will further infuse the competition in the already started price war. I urge the service providers to be equally aggressive in reducing the tariff in other value added services particularly in SMS segment.
Another important aspect I would touch upon this day of “India celebrating 500 million connections” is the quality of service. I would urge the industry that apart from the telescopic growth in the number of connections, we must equally focus to improve the quality of service by adopting new technologies and augmenting the existing infrastructure, wherever required, to increase the customer satisfaction index.
As 70% population of our population lives in the rural areas, increase of telecommunication reach to these masses has always been in the forefront of the Government policy. The consistent efforts made by the Government and the industry have helped in reducing the high imbalance of rural urban divide. In a short span of 3 years, the rural teledensity has crossed the figure of 19% accounting for more than fourfold increase. USO Funds are being extensively deployed to reduce the rural urban imbalance by providing subsidy support for mobile towers. USOF is also planning to connect all Gram Panchayats with dark fibre for creating adequate backhaul in rural area. Since, the urban teledensity has already crossed 100% mark, rural telecom sector is the area where we should now focus more to sustain the present growth. I am happy to learn that the private sector has already set up their base in the rural area with the same zeal as in the urban sector. It is a matter of great satisfaction that the private operators account for 80% of the rural telecom market. I am confident that the continued participation by the both public and private sector will help us in achieving the Government target of 40% rural teledensity well before the set timeline of May 2014.
Another niche area where I would like the participation of our industry is the expansion of broadband which is largely confined to the urban area. As against our set target of 20 million connections by 2010, we have achieved only 7 million broadband connections so far. I find that the participation of industry in this area is fairly limited. I would urge the industry to create the broadband as the next wave in India.
The BSNL and MTNL have launched 3G services in some parts of the country. The process of auction of spectrum for 3G and BWA services to private operators have started and is slated for completion by February 2010. This will provide much needed competition in 3G services. 3G and BWA services provide the benefit of voice, broadband connectivity, high speed data downloading and computing, audio and video streaming to the common man on their mobile devices. Expansion of 3G and BWA services will also pave the way in crossing the hurdles currently being experienced in laying of broadband network in rural area like last mile connectivity, higher cost of customer premise equipment including personal computers, issues related to right of way and availability of poor power supply.
I am very happy to note that CMAI, an integrated Association for IT & telecom, is taking active interest in overall development of telecom and IT sector. It is a matter of pleasure that CMAI is also engaged actively in advocating the interest of consumers. I wish them all the success in their endeavor of serving the cause of providing quality yet affordable products and services to the consumers.
Earlier speaking on the occasion J.S Sarma, Chairman of TRAI, cautioned about the widening regional divide and urged to put in more efforts on Broadband connectivity in Rural India to help bridge the divide. PJ Thomas, Secretary Department of Telcom and other dignitaries were also present.
Source: PIB
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