EVEN AS the government admitted that the Universal Service Obligation (USO) fund created for the telecom industry was not being adequately utilised, it put the blame squarely on the private sector for not showing the required initiative to move into the rural sector and avail of the facility.

This was stated by Siddhartha Behura, secretary, Department of Telecommunications (DoT), ministry of communications and IT, at a Federation of Indain Chambers of Commerce and Industry (FICCI) seminar on ‘Rural Telecom Connectivity: Opportunities and challenges’. Behura said, "Of late, there has been a strong criticism about the funds available under the USO scheme. I wish to clarify that the USO funds are basically aimed at attracting and involving the private sector in extending tele density in the rural areas. To the extent this has not happened, we have not succeeded in achieving the objectives of the USO fund."

The secretary, DoT, announced that the government was working on a scheme to provide one lakh phone connections in rural common service centres. In addition, all government secondary and higher secondary schools and public health centers would be provided with broad band connectivity.

Behura said that the initiatives taken by the government were paying off and the target of providing one phone per two rural households would be reached before 2010.

The resources for implementation of USO are raised through a Universal Service Levy (USL) which has presently been fixed at five per cent of the Adjusted Gross Revenue (AGR) of all telecom service providers except the pure value added service providers like Internet, voice mail, e-mail service providers, etc. In addition, the Central government may also give grants and loans.

With the aim to provide e-governance and data services to the rural masses, a proposal is also under consideration by the government to provide subsidy support for broadband connectivity in rural and remote areas of the country in a phased manner by utilising the infrastructure created for provision of mobile services.

Nilangshu Katriar, partner, assurance, Ernst & Young (E&Y) India, gave details of the paper - ‘Telecom: The last frontier: Connecting India’s rural telecom community’, prepared by FICCI and E&Y. The paper points out that as the population and disposable income of rural India grows, rural telecom connectivity is poised for explosive growth in the next five to ten years. It is expected that of the next 250 million Indian wireless users, approximately 100 million (40 per cent) will be from rural areas itself.