Taking a step towards promotion of telephones in the rural areas, the department of telecom (DoT) has waived off the licence fee on rural landlines for telecom service providers. The move would result in an annual loss of Rs 200 crore for the government.
The decision would also give a boost to e-governance activities through provision of more broadband services in villages, thereby reducing the digital divide, an official statement said.
The decision was taken in the recent meeting of the telecom commission, DoT. The telecom commission has also decided to reduce the levy towards the universal service obligation (USO) to 3 per cent from 5 per cent now of the adjusted gross revenue (AGR) in the case of telecom service providers who have already covered more than 95 per cent of rural areas.
The USO fund has been set up to create infrastructure support in rural and remote areas for providing telecom services to people at affordable and reasonable prices. The move is in line with government’s policy of promotion of rural telephony and accessibility of telephone in remote areas.
The aim is to achieve rural teledensity of 25 per cent by means of 200 million rural connections at the end of the 11th Plan. The rural teledensity stood at 8 per cent as on December 31, 2007.