India pledges major telecoms initiatives

India pledges major telecoms initiatives
REUTERS

JULY 15: Indian Prime Minister Atal Behari Vajpayee said on Saturday that the government will open domestic long distance telephone operations to the private sector before August 15.

"Recognising the benefits of large-scale competition the government has decided to fully deregulate NLDO (National Long Distance Operations), with no artificial restrictions on the number of licenses to be issued," Vajpayee told a conference of state information technology ministers.

He said long distance telephony would be opened up before August 15, when India marks its Independence Day.

Private players would have to pay a stipulated entry fee and a share of the revenues, he said.

While private firms have begun offering fixed telephone services in several Indian provinces since 1994, long distance telephony is still a monopoly of the government.

INTERNET SERVICES

Vajpayee said the government was also keen to end monopoly of undersea optical fibre connectivity because this had hurt the growth of Internet services in the country. "Towards this end, private Internet Service providers (ISPs) will be allowed, either singly or jointly to set up their own landing stations anywhere in India in collaboration with international undersea bandwidth carriers," he told the ministers.

Currently state-run Videsh Sanchar Nigam Ltd (VSNL) controls access to global fibre optic pipes and overseas telecommunication links. Private Internet service providers have been allowed to set up international gateways subject to government approvals but Vajpayee said this was not enough.

"Constraints of capacity in international data communication have severely hampered the growth of Internet services in the country," said. The meeting decided to set up a task force on human resources development in the information technology sector to prepare long-term strategy for significantly increasing the number of trained personnel, India's Information Technology Minister Pramod Mahajan told reporters after the day-long conference.

The meeting also adopted a 13-point action plan to promote information technology in the country.

The Federal Government and the state governments decided to allow free right of way facility, with no charge in cash or kind, to access providers to lay optical fiber networks along the national highways, state highways and other roads.

Mahajan said the Federal Government would reduce customs and excise regime for optical fibre, IT hardware, set top boxes, other Internet access devices, and television sets for distance education and extension programmes.

He said that there would be no sales tax and other state taxes on the IT sector for the next three to five years and added that Internet international gateways already sanctioned must become operational by August 15, 2000.

With less than one million subscribers, India has a low Internet penetration in a nation of one billion people. Telephone density is barely 2.6 per 100 compared with a world average of around 15.

Vajpayee urged the states to launch a massive programme of telephone connections in Indian villages, greater use of information technology in governance, agriculture and traditional industries.