Communications Minister A Raja today said he was planning to amend the Universal Service Obligation (USO) Fund rules in the next two months to make it easier for telecom companies to access over Rs 11,000-crore corpus lying with the government to push rural telephony.
“It (amendment) is being done to remove the rigidity in USO Fund rules and make it more flexible,” Raja told reporters in Geneva. He added that the new rules would do away with the tender system for allotting funds to operators, including the private telecom service providers.
Currently, USO fund administrator invites bid from interested telcos for setting up infrastructure in rural areas and the process is time consuming. Over Rs 11,000 crore of USO funds lie unutilised with the Consolidated Fund of India because the rules governing the release of the fund are too rigid.
The USO Fund was initially established with the fundamental objective of providing access to basic telegraph services in the rural and remote areas at affordable and reasonable prices.
Subsequently, an Act was passed in 2006 — the Indian Telegraph (Amendment) Act 2006 — to amend the Indian Telegraph Act of 1885, to enable provision of all types of telegraph services.
The rules were subsequently amended in order to enable support for mobile services and broadband connectivity in rural and remote areas as the Indian Telegraph (Amendment) Rules 2006.
The telecom service providers are both public and private sector companies.
The resources for implementation of USO are raised through a Universal Service Levy, which is currently fixed at 5 per cent of the adjusted gross revenue of all telecom service providers.
D Ravi Kanth adds from Geneva:
India on Tuesday informed global telecom companies that its multi-billion-dollar auction of 3G and broadband (WiMax) licences would be completed well before the presentation of the Union Budget for 2010-11, as it is being factored in the Budget estimates.
“Senior officials of the Indian communications ministry gave a clear message yesterday during our reception about the importance of completing 3G and WiMax auctions before the presentation of the Union Budget as they are factored in the Budget estimates,” Mohammad Shakouri, corporate vice-president of Alvarion, the world’s leading WiMax technology provider from Israel, told Business Standard today.
Alvarion held a special reception for Communications Minister A Raja and his officials as well as for Indian telecom companies, who were in Geneva to attend the Telecom World 2009 summit.
Though Raja skipped the reception, a senior ministry official read out a message from him, saying the government was working overtime to complete the auction of the licences well before the presentation of the Budget as the multi-billion-dollar revenue expected from the sale of licences would become a critical component of the government’s overall revenues.
