NLD telephony opened to pvt sector

NLD telephony opened to pvt sector
Sudipto Dey & Neeraj Saxena

New Delhi, July 15: The government on Saturday announced opening of the national long distance telephony to the private sector by August 15 without any ceiling on the number of players. In an effort to ease the bandwidth crunch in the country, the government also heralded the end of state monopoly in submarine optical fiber connectivity.

Addressing the first State IT Minister's Conference in the capital, Prime Minister Atal Bihari Vajpayee said the government had decided to fully deregulate national long distance operations with no artificial restriction on the number of licences to be issued. The licensees for long distance telephony would have to pay an entry fee and operate on a revenue-sharing basis, Vajpayee said.

Marking the end of VSNL hold on issue of bandwidth, the Prime Minister announced that private ISPs will be allowed to set up their own landing stations anywhere in India in collaboration with international under-sea bandwidth carriers.

Significantly, Vajpayee said that VSNL will be asked to make necessary changes in its exclusive arrangement with its international partner FLAG (Fibre link around the globe) to fully utilise the existing bandwidth available. However, it was not immediately clear if VSNL will be compensated for the loss due to change in terms of agreement, letting private ISPs directly negotiate with FLAG.

In another landmark decision that is bound to bring cheer to private ISPs, the centre and state governments will allow free `right of way' facility for laying optic fibre cable networks along the roads.

Briefing the media about the 13-point common action plan chalked out at the end of the day-long meet, union IT minister Pramod Mahajan said National Highways Authority of India will be asked not to levy a charge wherever states themselves were not levying a tax for laying the cables. Only a nominal restoration fee will be levied for repairs.

It has also been decided to levy no sales tax and other state taxes on the IT sector for the next three to five years, he said. The Centre will reduce customs and excise regime for optic fibre, IT hardware, set top boxes, Net access devices and TV sets for distance education.

A major thrust to improve IT manpower is on the anvil. A task force will soon be set up to prepare a long-term strategy for human resource development in IT. It will comprise ministers of HRD, information technology and finance of various states.

The task force will draw up a plan to optimally use the existing infrastructure of IITs, Regional Engineering Colleges and other institutions to double their student intake from the next academic year and triple it in the next two years.

Mahajan said the country required anywhere between 2 lakh to 3 lakh skilled IT professionals every year as against the present one lakh which was woefully short.

In an effort to speed up infrastructure development in telecom and IT, Vajpayee said the high-level Group on Telecom and IT Convergence under the chairmanship of Finance minister Yashwant Sinha was in the process of finalising many "far-reaching" recommendations.

On promoting IT for masses the prime minister said government should take up projects like rural telephone connectivity, e-governance, computerisation of banks and land and judicial records.

Several states took the government to task on dilly-dallying on the direct-to-home (DTH) broadcasting issue and permitting voice telephony over Internet.

The conference was attended by 14 chief ministers including Chandrababu Naidu (Andhra Pradesh), SM Krishna (Karnataka), M Karunanidhi (Tamil Nadu), EK Nayanar (Kerala), Digvijay Singh (Madhya Pradesh), Ram Prakash Gupta (Uttar Pradesh), Shiela Dixit (Delhi), PK Mahanta (Assam) and PK Dhumal (Himachal Pradesh) and 16 IT ministers of various states. The conference will become an annual two-day feature to review the progress and take up issues concerning the sector.