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Presentation to National Advisory Council (NAC) regarding USO Fund Activities in North Eastern States. Meeting on 17 th August 2011 at New Delhi. Status of Telephony in North Eastern Region. Teledensity in NE-I is higher than All India. Growth in NER is mainly on Wireless Technologies.
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Presentation to National Advisory Council (NAC) regarding USO Fund Activities in North Eastern States Meeting on 17th August 2011 at New Delhi
USO Fund USO Fund was created effective from 01.04.2002 with an amendment of Indian Telegraph Act. The objective was to provide access to basic telegraph services to people in rural and remote areas at affordable and reasonable prices. Originally the thrust was on public & individual access which included Village Public Telephones (VPTs), MARR replacements and Rural Community Phones (RCPs) and Rural lines to individual users (RDELs). In December 2006, Indian Telegraph Act was amended to include the activities of shared infrastructure, mobile services, broadband connectivity, general infrastructure like OFC etc. Indian Telegraph Rules have been amended in 2004, 2006 and 2008 for implementation of USOF activities.
USO Fund – Levy Funded through Universal Access Levy @ 5% of Adjusted Gross Revenue (AGR) from all Service Providers except the pure value added service providers like Internet, Voice Mail, E-Mail service providers etc. Levy amount is credited to Consolidated Fund of India and made available to USOF after due appropriation by the Parliament. Provision for Grants and Loans from Government of India
Scope of USO Fund • Activities under USO Fund are taken up under different Streams of Indian Telegraph Rules. • Stream I : Provision of Public Telephone Services • Stream II : Provision of Household Telephones in Net High Cost rural & remote Areas. • Stream III : Creation of Infrastructure for provision of Mobile Services in rural & remote areas. • Stream IV : Provision of Broadband connectivity to villages in a phased manner. • Stream V : Creation of general infrastructure in rural and remote areas for development of telecom facilities • Stream VI: Induction of new technological developments in the telecom sector in rural and remote areas
VPTs in all inhabited villages Village Public Telephones (VPTs) have been provided in 37127 villages out of the total of 40377 inhabited villages in North Eastern Region with financial support from USO Fund. Under Bharat Nirman 11,982 villages were planned to be provided with VPTs In North East . Villages with population less than 100, those affected with insurgency and those lying in deep forests were excluded for provision of VPTs For the remaining uncovered inhabited 7245villages as per Census 2001, USOF has signed agreement with BSNL in Feb 2009. This includes villages with population less than 100, remote & inaccessible locations etc. All the remaining villages are to be provided with VPTs by Mar’2012.
MARR Replacements Dysfunctional VPTs working on Multi Access Radio Relay (MARR) technology are being replaced with that of reliable technology VPTs BSNL is to replace 12,796 existing dysfunctional Multi Access Radio Relay (MARR) based VPTs in North Eastern Region with reliable technology VPTs Out of these 12558 MARR based VPT have been replaced as on 31.07.2011 Replacement of remaining MARR based VPTs are not feasible on conventional technologies and are to be replaced by satellite phones.
Status of Provision of RCPs 2355 Rural Community Phones (RCPs)] were to be provided by BSNL in North Eastern Region in villages with population exceeding 2,000 and not having PCO facility
Individual Rural Lines Agreements were signed with M/s BSNL in March 2005 for provision of individual rural household Direct Exchange Lines (RDELs) to be installed during 01.04.2005 and 31.03.2007 in North Eastern Region RDELs were to be installed in the eligible 104 Short Distance Charging Areas (SDCAs), where cost of providing telephone connection is more than the revenue earned 1,44,791 RDELs have been provided in North East states till 31.03.2010 i.e. till the closure of the scheme
Shared Mobile Infrastructure Scheme The Scheme was launched for Setting up and managing infrastructure sites for provision of mobile services in rural and remote areas, where there is no existing fixed wireless/ mobile coverage The habitations of more than 2000 populations covered Infrastructure so created to be shared by three service providers for provision of mobile services The agreements effective from 01.06.2007 were signed with the successful bidders in May 2007 As on 31.07.2011, 515 towers out of 574 towers have been set up in NE Region
Wire-line Broadband • An Agreement was signed with BSNL on 20.01.09 for subsidy disbursement towards provision of wire-line broadband connectivity in rural areas. • The speed of the broadband connections shall be at least 512 kbps always on, with the capability to deliver data, voice and video services in the fixed mode. • Support to be provided for 31 BB connections and 1 Kiosk per rural exchange • The subsidy disbursement is for • Broadband connections, • Customer Premises Equipment (CPE) • Computer/Computing devices • Setting up of Kiosks for public access to broadband services. • Individual Users, Institutional Users such as Gram Panchayats, Hr. secondary schools and Public Health Centers, Kiosks etc are entitled for support
Optical Fiber Network The scheme envisages to provide subsidy support for augmentation, creation and management of intra-district SDHQ-DHQ OFC Network The aims is to make available the network capacity on sharing basis to other service providers for transport of rural/remote area traffic at the prescribed rates The approach is to utilize spare fiber and multiplex capacity wherever available in the network as well as utilize existing premises and upgrade the existing capacity as required, install new OFC routes to SDHQ still not having OFC connectivity To start with, Assam has been taken up as first state. BSNL (the selected bidder) has installed about 127 nodes so far (Out of 354).
Cumulative Subsidy Disbursement upto June 2011 – Rs. 14,212. 55 Crore
PILOT PROJECTS • Support is being considered for renewable energy resources (Solar, Wind, Diesel Hybrid solutions) • One USOF site each in all North Eastern states to be covered • Support is being considered for providing solar mobile charging stations in villages through TERI’s project of Lighting a Billion Lives (LaBL) • 100 numbers of such charging stations would be provided in the state of Assam
Forthcoming Schemes • A scheme is envisaged for provision of integrated mobile voice & broadband services in all left out uncovered rural & remote areas of the country including those in North Eastern States. The scheme also envisages use of renewable energy resources (solar/wind/hybrid) for powering of these sites. • USO Fund is working on a scheme for providing financial assistance by way of subsidy for the wireless broadband active infrastructure by utilizing the existing passive infrastructure available with the Telecom service providers. This scheme would provide broadband coverage to villages in a phased manner. The Scheme is likely to be launched shortly. • After the launch of the Augmentation, Creation and Management of Intra-District SDHQ-DHQ OFC Network Scheme in Assam, the NE Circles (comprising States of Meghalaya, Manipur, Tripura, Mizoram, Arunachal Pradesh, & Nagaland) are being taken up for implementation. The bids stand evaluated, Railtel has emerged as L1 bidder and signing of the agreement is under process.
Points for Discussion Difficulty in acquisition of land Poor connectivity of roads and public transport Difficulty in transportation Lack of Electric supply/connections Road cutting permissions not being received Extortion/ demand of ransom/ collection of unauthorized taxes
Points for Discussion Frequent strikes, curfews and economic blockades Frequent road cuts Various permissions required to be taken from State Government Agencies- ROW, work permits, Tower charges SWAN Project ready and awaiting State Govt. Project implementing agency