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Telecom Policy To Focus On Rural Growth

BW Online Bureau Nov 08, 2014

<?xml version="1.0" encoding="UTF-8"?><root available-locales="en_US," default-locale="en_US"><static-content language-id="en_US"><![CDATA[The National Telecom Policy 2011 will lay special emphasis on providing affordable and quality telecommunication services in rural and remote areas, said Prime Minister Manmohan Singh on Wednesday. "It is estimated that every 10 percentage point increase in broadband penetration leads to a 1.3 per cent increase in a country's Gross Domestic Product, said the prime minister. "The NTP 2011 looks forward to high speed and high quality broadband access to all village Panchayats through optical fibre by the year 2014 and progressively to all our villages and habitations." The government aims to achieve 175 mn broadband connections by the year 2017 and 600 mn by 2020 at minimum download speed of 2 mbps. The penetration of wireless voice services has increased from about 2 per cent in 2000 to about 72.1 per cent in August 2011. "India is the fastest growing telecom market in the world, with the addition of over 18 million subscribers every month," he said. The Prime Minister was speaking at the three-day conference cum exhibition - India Telecom 2011 in Delhi. The event with an underlying theme of 'm-powering India' was organised by Ficci in collaboration with the Department of Telecommunication (DoT). The event aims at providing the business linkages between the Indian telecom industry and international telecom fraternity. The government is committed to sustaining growth of the country's telecom sector, Prime Minister Manmohan Singh said on Wednesday, seeking to boost investor confidence in the once-booming sector that has been hit by regulatory uncertainties. "I am aware of some concerns of the telecom industry regarding government policies in the telecom sector," Singh told a gathering of telecom industry executives on Wednesday. "I wish to reassure industry of the government's full commitment to sustaining growth, creativity and enterprise in this vitally important sector of our economy," he said. In the new telecom policy, which is expected to be finalised by early next year, the government seeks to relax rules for mergers and acquisitions in the telecoms sector to facilitate consolidation in the crowded 15-player market. India opened the sector for private participation in the mid-1990s. Lower call tariffs and aggressive network expansion by companies to smaller towns and rural areas has seen the sector adding mobile phone users at a fast pace to 870 million currently, from about 5 million in 2002. "The telecommunications sector is one of India's success stories," Singh said. The government over the next 2 years plans to create a National Optical Fibre Network (NOFN) with an initial-phase cost of about Rs 20,000 crore. The private sector will contribute equal amount to complement the infrastructure by providing access services to the individual users. The PM noted that viewing the growth potential for the manufacture of telecom equipment there is an urgent need to boost the domestic research & development and manufacturing in the telecom sector. The prime minister was addressing the telecom exhibitors and delegates during the inauguration of India Telecom 2011 - three-day conference cum exhibition. The minister of information and communication technology Kapil Sibal, who was also present on the occasion said, "With a subscribers base of 899 mn in India and 120 mn international users, our country is the second largest telecom market in the world. Over the last 5 years the overall tele-density has grown from 8.95 per cent to 74.96 per cent. While overall tele-density has increased 5 times from 26 per cent to 164 per cent, the rural tele-density has increased significantly from 1.73 to 6.9 per cent." Sibal added that the telecom sector is the third largest recipient of the FDI. In the next 5 years the India telecom sector will require investment of Rs 6.5 trillion with the implementation of NOFN, deployment of 3G infrastructure, telecom green technology and widening of VWA network. This will generate huge investment opportunities propagating an investor friendly echo system in our country. More than 256 exhibitors from 36 countries are attending India Telecom 2011. Some of the prominent exhibitors include BSNL, MTNL, WiMax Forum, Ericsson, Vodafone Essar, Bharti Airtel, Sistema Shyam Teleservices and Nokia Siemens Network.