Opposing the Planning Commission?s proposal to boost rural telephony by subsidising telephone bills of telephone users, the department of telecommunications (DoT) has written to the PMO, citing various complexities in implementing the plan, and said that any such move would only result in misdirected subsidies.
?Due to inherent mobility, a mobile connection taken on rural address can always be used in urban areas, and it will be difficult to keep a track of connections,? the department letter explained this as one of the ways in which subsidy plan proposed by the Planning Commission could be misused.
As reported by FE on January 13, the Planning Commission had written to the PMO proposing plan to subsidise rural mobile phones by paying 20% of the phone bill of rural users whose monthly usage was less than R300. But in a meeting on March 1, senior DoT officials,including the secretary and various members, refuted the move on statistical grounds. According to data collated by government agencies, the revenue earned from a mobile phone user on an average is R110 and that from a rural user will be much lesser, which in effect would balloon the government?s subsidy bill as almost entire rural India will come under this susbsidy net.
As part of its plan, the Planning Commission had proposed that the funds to provide the subsidy could be drawn from the universal services obligation fund, the R13,000-crore cash-rich fund, which is regularly accumulated by the 5% levy on the adjusted gross revenue of the telecom operators.
But DoT said the USO fund has already been committed for setting up National Optic Fibre Network to provide broadband connectivity to panchayats, which in turn would aid mobile service providers to expand their services in rural areas and hence boost rural telephony.
Meanwhile, DoT said the Planning Commission?s proposal, however, may be re-examined after UID scheme is implemented, by linking mobile numbers of rural phone users with the UID numbers which would make delivery of subsidies more effective. Further, DoT feels the issue of whether the telecom subsidy can become part of various other subsidies given to below poverty line families on an aggregated basis rather than purpose specific to ensure that choices can be made by the beneficiaries.