Telecom boom skips half of India

13 of 27 telecom circles have lower tele-density than countrys average of 7.02

Almost half of India , with as many as 13 out of the 27 circles, may have missed the telecom revolution, having a much lower tele-density than the pan-Indian average of 7.02 as on March 31, 2004.

The Indian Telecommunication Statistics, 2004, released recently by the Department of Telecommunications (DoT), shows that the telephone penetration per 100 people in these 13 circles ranged between 1.5 and 5.

The newly-carved out Chhattisgarh, with a tele-density of 1.58 figures at the bottom of the list, in sharp contrast to Delhi, which tops the list with almost 41 telephones per 100 people. Besides Chhattisgarh, three other states, Bihar, Assam and Jharkhand, have less than two telephones per 100.

According to the Economic Survey 2003-04, India trebled its tele-density during the last five years from 2.33 in March 1999 to 7.02 in March 2004. The growth, however, has been fuelled largely by the stupendous 159.2 per cent growth in the mobile telephony, which has largely been confined to the metros and a few circles.

Circles like West Bengal, Uttar Pradesh east, Orissa, Jammu & Kashmir, too, had less than three telephones for every 100 people as on January 1, this year.

Metro circles and some others, including Punjab, Kerala, Andaman & Nicobar, achieved a 3-4 times growth in telephone penetration. Mumbai (28.39), Chennai (27.28) and Kolkata (15.68) followed Delhi with the highest level of tele-density. Among the non-metro circles, Punjab achieved an impressive tele-density of 16.21 followed by Kerala (13.78) and Andaman & Nicobar (11.41).

The total number of telephone connections grew about 40 per cent in 2003-04 and crossed 76 million as on March 31, 2004. The DoT report puts the total number of telephones at 70.5 million at the end of December 2003.
 

Disturbing trends
States	Tele-density on
	31-Mar-03	1-Jan-04
Chhattisgarh	""	1.58
Bihar	0.53	1.59
Assam	0.84	1.97
Jharkhand	""	1.97
West Bengal	1.68	2.53
Northeast -II	""	2.57
Uttar Pradesh east	1.08	2.74
Orissa	0.97	2.81
Jammu & Kashmir	1.14	2.90
Northeast-I	1.41	3.16
Madhya Pradesh	1.25	3.76

Of the total 27 circles, 11 circles, including Assam, Bihar, Jharkhand, Orissa, northeast, West Bengal, Rajasthan, Madhya Pradesh, Chhatisgarh, Jammu & Kashmir, account for a meagre 6 per cent of the total number of telephones.

The private sector played a major role in increasing the total number of telephone connections in the country. Tele-density sky-rocketed in circles where a number of private operators have started providing services.

Aggressive tariff plans, marketing strategy and the intra-industry competitions drove the growth of telephones, industry experts said. All most all the category B and category C circles, less lucrative in terms of revenue, had to remain content with a monopoly or a duopoly market.

The government targets to take the tele-density level to 14 by March 2006, with the number of phone connections expected to touch 150 million during 2005-06.