In a bid to accelerate the ICT growth in the country, Confederation of Indian Industry (CII) on Tuesday has submitted five point recommendations on telecom & broadband to A Raja, minister for communications and information technology.
The agenda includes roadmap for accelerating inclusive, equitable and sustainable growth of broadband in India to reach 695 million users by 2014, including 309 million in rural India, as per CII broadband study ?India 2009-2014: Broadband Roadmap for Inclusive Growth?.
CII has recommended providing autonomy to USO (universal service obligation) fund administrator for creation of broadband infrastructure for equitable use of all and to strengthen the infrastructure using funds from the USO fund. CII emphasised that the USO body should be given responsibility of laying down high speed back haul via fiber to the kerb (FTTK) infrastructure across the country and provide a single-window clearance and lower the taxes for towers and digging.
??Broadband connectivity will considerably enhance the quality of life with useful and critical applications such as e-governance, e-education and e-health and accordingly, government should complete its 27 NeGP (national e-governance project) mission mode projects in a phased and time-bound manner??, the CII representation said.
CII also has suggested the growth of wireless broadband through 3G & BWA (broad band wireless access) and further recommend planned auctions of 3G and BWA spectrum as per already notified guidelines to be completed expeditiously so as to roll out these services by mid 2010. CII further said, ?maximum possible spectrum should be allotted in 2.1 GHz, 2.3 GHz, 2.5 GHz bands?.
Stressing on fast pace growth of rural telecom infrastructure on priority basis, CII propose that Centre needs to address issues related to tower constructions, tower sharing and standardisation, providing backhaul for broadband connectivity to all villages, electricity to be made adequately available at reasonable price, and pragmatic approach for collection & usage of USO fund, with a sun-set clause over the next 3 years??.
CII representation adds that electricity board connection should be made available as public utility connection in urban/semi urban areas and at agriculture rate (or at least at par with IT industry) in rural areas. Also, unless reliable power condition is reached it is suggested that support/ incentives on use of renewable energy is provided.
Calling for rationalisation of taxation & levies is must for affordable tele services, CII memorandum opine taxes and levies paid by the Indian telecom sector in the form of license fee, spectrum charges, ADC (access deficit charges), service tax etc. are the highest when compared to other Asian economies and amounts to 24%-34% of the AGR (adjusted gross revenue). CII has requested for reduction in two phases: phase I?22% and Phase II?13-15%. Another recommendation on taxes is for a single central tax and another single state level tax, which can be later merged into one tax as a percentage of the AGR.
CII also presented the spectrum roadmap for 1 billion wireless users in India by 2014-15. To achieve the same, CII recommend that for affordable mobile telecom services, there is an urgent need to develop a comprehensive spectrum policy with short term, medium and long term plans for refarming of required frequency bands.
In its meeting with the minister CII reiterated that there is a big potential in India for telecom manufacturing and creation of own IT & technologies and govt needs to provide thrust. CII requested government?s attention on these priorities for appropriate action, and said that this would surely help the industry to participate and usher India into the next phase of Bharat Nirman.
Manoj Kohli, chairman, CII national committee on telecom & broadband and Jt MD and CEO of Bharti Airtel in the CII representation has said ??The industry is fully prepared to take the onus of being global No 1 in telecom by 2014-15 by being an active participant of second phase of Bharat Nirman. In order to fulfill this journey of providing sustainable and equitable growth to the citizens of India, we request the government to enable and provide support on key 5 challenges??.