Ficci for fresh look at USO recommendations

Our eFE Bureau in New Delhi

Federation of Indian Chambers of Commerce and Industry (FICCI) has asked for a re-examination of the recommendations made by the Telecom Regulatory Authority of India (TRAI) on the Universal Service Obligation (USO) to ensure level playing field between private and government operators, and also between new and existing operators.

In a written representation made to the Union Communications Minister Pramod Majahan, FICCI secretary general Amit Mitra has pointed out that unless TRAI addresses some key issues, it “will fail to achieve the desired objectives.”

The issues raised by FICCI include level-playing field among all service providers, reimbursement from the USO fund to all operators at par, and relaxation in the date of implementation i.e 1st April 2002, and due representation of the private sector in the proposed Universal Service Fund (USF) Administration Board.

While TRAI has recommended that all the telecom operators should contribute 5 per cent of their revenue towards USO fund, it is not clear from the recommendations whether Bharat Sanchar Nigam Limited (BSNL) will also contribute to the USO fund.

“This is of concern specially because BSNL is not been paying any licence fee. Creation of a level-playing field between private and Government operators makes it necessary that BSNL is also asked to contribute 5 per cent of their revenue to the USO fund,” according to FICCI representation.

Contribution from BSNL is also important because it would raise the level of the corpus available with the USO fund significantly and hence make available a larger pool of financial resources with the USF Administrator to ensure a faster roll-out of telecom facilities in rural areas.

The association has also opposed the TRAI recommendation about capital recovery being allowed only for VPTs installed after April 1, 2002.

The TRAI recommendation that private basic service licensees would have to discharge their contractual obligations as part of their license agreements has also been opposed by FICCI.

As per the TRAI recommendations, for USO support these VPTs wil be treated in Category One where only operating expenses will be compensate from the USO fund. This would be irrespective of date of their installation.

“When existing basic licensees migrated to NTP 99, the government had recognized that all obligations had been settled with the payment of outstanding license fee. Hence there is no obligation on the existing operators to meet unfulfilled obligations of the past, as these are now deemed to be settled,” as per the letter.

Further, FICCI has urged the government not to discriminate between existing and new service providers.

It has asked for relaxation in the date of implementation, ie, 1st April 2002 and for benefit of full compensation to all existing private operators providing rural connectivity, at par with new operators.