The level of tariff for value-added services in the telecom sector should be determined by market forces, says the Planning Commission. Besides, the commission says a fourth of the licence fee paid by private operators should be given to the department of telecommunications.
The plan panel has said that an independent body should be created to lay down the standards of telecom equipment, components and infrastructure to be used by both the public and private sector for value-added services.
As many as 19 new value-added services will be introduced in the ninth plan. DoTs infrastructure for introducing tele-medicine and tele-education will be ready in two to three years.
A working group sponsored by the Planning Commission that went into the need for new value-added services has projected exponential growth of 10 to 25 times in the eight existing value-added services, including mobile phones, radio paging and electronic mail.
The 19-member working group was headed by Telecom Commission member (technology) N K Sinha and had representatives from various government departments, financial institutions and industry bodies.
During the ninth plan, DoT is also expected to introduce universal access number facility, enabling subscribers to route his calls to a specific number when they move from one place to other.
The report has said that personal communication services (PCS) using digital access technology will be available in the year 2000. There will be 15,000 subscribers for PCS, which includes telepoint, cordless technologies and cellular mobile by 2002, the last year of the ninth plan.
The chief recommendations of the working group are:
As a multi-operator scenario will evolve with time, a single card should be available to subscribers for use across networks. Chipcard and credit card pay-phones should be encouraged.
Customs duty should be lowered on customer terminals, components and raw materials as also on semi-finished products to give a fillip to the manufacturing sector.
The Planning Commission should take up an integrated pilot project to lay SDH optical fibre system along a stretch of road covering at least one major town and a cluster of villages. The idea is to provide modern telecom facilities.
DoT may consider pilot projects for introducing tele-medicine by taking 2 Mb/s stream to selected primary health centres.
During national emergencies and disasters, the operation of networks run by private companies should be handed over to DoT. This provision should be built into the licence agreements.
Sufficient funds should be made available to develop infrastructure by DoT and R&D by the Centre for Development of Telematics (C-DoT).
