Government initiatives in telecom: opportunities for rural telecom and ICT based public service delivery in India-BSNL perspective; a study

Abstract

Telecom has been recognised as one of the important and vital tool for development of a nation. Along with IT, it is a prime support service required to drive growth and modernisation of all sectors. Telecom has a multiplier effect on the economy and key to rapid economic and social development. Though the growth of telecom has been encouraging, the disparity between rural and urban remains a matter of concern. The government, through USO Funding, has tried to support the growth of rural telephony by providing subsidies for basic telephony, but the results have not been encouraging. Similarly, to usher in the era of e-governance, it has initiated many schemes for the government/public sector to build a strong telecom backbone which would be capable of delivering high speed broadband access across all rural areas of the states. Such a network would enable the government to roll out ICT based public services through its scheme of Common Service Centres (CSCs).An attempt has been made to study opportunities for the telecom service providers in light of the various schemes of the government and various other agencies who have taken initiative to deploy and use the telecom infrastructure for providing efficient services. Some schemes, like USO Funding of basic services have not been able to yield the desired results and reasons for them have been studied. Further, the other schemes like ASWAN, OFC-project of Assam state, CCTNS of Police dept., Tele education venture of AIISH and functioning of some CSCs have been studied from the perspective of utility to community and business opportunities for telecom service providers. The hurdles and constraints in execution of large projects have also been studied and recommendations made to address these issues. A framework for effective collaboration between various stakeholders participating in ICT ventures for effective, timely and successful implementation of the initiatives has been suggested.