Saturday, September 13, 2008

DOT GO Ahead to BSNL for VPT Phase II

Work Starts to Provide Public Telephone to 50000 new villages All India Coverage by end 2009 
 
The Department of Telecommunications has asked the state owned BSNL to start installation of public telephones in another 50,000 newly identified villages. With this, all the villages in the country would be covered by public telephone service. BSNL has already commenced work on this second phase of Village Public Telephone (VPT) scheme. These 50000 villages include new villages appearing in Census 2001, villages with population less than 100 and those left out earlier because of various reasons. VPTs will come up in such uncovered villages with subsidy support from DOT’s Universal Service Obligation (USO) Fund. Installation of public telephones in all villages is expected to be completed by the end of the next year.

The government is already implementing a scheme to provide subsidised public telephone facility to 66822 uncovered villages under the Bharat Nirman programme. Out of these, 54700 villages have already been covered and the remaining are likely to be covered by the end of the current year. All villages have been brought under the scheme except those having population of less than 100, those lying in deep forests and those affected with insurgency. About 5000 remotely located villages are being provided with VPT using satellite technology i.e. Digital Satellite Phone Terminals (DSPTs).

The State owned telecom operator, BSNL has provided telephones to five and half lakh villages across the country. It has extended 11 million GSM connections in the rural areas. The company’s GSM coverage has reached out to about 256000 villages, which means over 43 percent of the total number of villages. Besides, it covers 75 percent of the villages through its WLL network. The telecom giant has also brought 30,500 villages under the reach of Broadband.

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