USO Fund For Village Telephony To Fetch Rs 1,800 Cr Annually

New Delhi: : The long awaited guidelines on financial support for ensuring telephone services in the rural and remote areas of the country have been finalised by the government. “It has been decided to extend support to the universal service from the financial year 2002-03 (beginning April 1),” according to the guidelines put up on the website of the Department of Telecommuni-cations (DoT).

Support will be provided through the universal service fund, the corpus of which would comprise contributions from the various telecom service providers. The so-called universal service levy is currently 5 per cent of the gross revenues of the telecom service providers. Sources said that annual contributions of about Rs 1,800 crore are expected.

The DoT said that the levy could be increased if required but the overall revenue-share limits (8-12 per cent) would not be disturbed to ensure that there was no additional burden on the service providers or the consumer. The fund will be administered by DoT.

As per the recommendations of the Telecom Regulatory Authority of India (Trai), there would be no reimbursement of capital expenditure for installation of village public telephones (VPTs) in the 607,491 villages identified in the 1991 census. Only the net cost (cost minus revenue) incurred on operating the these VPTs will be reimbursed.

For the additional villages identified in the 2001 census, the capital as well as the operating expenses will be reimbursible from the universal service fund. Support from the fund — the capital cost and net operating expenses — will, in addition, be available for rural community phones in villages where 1 VPT has already been installed. It would be also be extended for installation of a second public phone in villages where population exceeds 2000.

The universal service fund will also finance the capital expenses of replacing the VPTs on MARR system, most of which are not working. According to the guidelines: “The basic service operators will be required to draw up a yearly plan for replacement of such (MARR-based) VPTs and support from the universal service fund will be allowed towards both the annual capital recovery as well as annual operating expenses.”

Capital and operating expenses will also be reimbursed for upgrading VPTs to public telecom and info centres (PTICs) and subsequently into high speed PTICs. “A phased programme will be drawn and inplemented to upgrade about 35,000 VPTs to function as PTICs by end of year 2004,” the guidelines said.

Disbursement of funds would be...