In order to give an impetus to rural telephony, the department of telecommunications (DoT) on Thursday decided to waive the licence fee on rural landlines, explaining the low level of penetration in rural areas. The move is expected to make the Centre loose as much as Rs 200 crore annually.
The telecom commission has decided to reduce the levy towards the Universal Service Obligation from the present 5% to 3% of the adjusted gross revenue in the case of those telecom service providers, which have already covered more than 95% of rural areas. The decision is also intended to give a boost to e-governance through provision of more broadband services in villages, thus reducing the digital divide, an official statement said.
The Universal Service Obligation Fund had been set up to create infrastructure support in rural and remote areas for providing telecommunications service to people at affordable and reasonable prices. The latest decisions of the telecom commission are in line with the government?s policy to promote rural telephony and accessibility of telephone in remote areas. The aim is to achieve rural teledensity of 25% by means of 200 million rural connections at the end of the 11th Plan. The rural teledensity was 8% as on December 31, 2007.