(a) the date on which the first joint meeting of the National Telecom Advisory Committee was held;
(b) the details of the matter discussed therein;
(c) whether he was not satisfied with the working of the Consumer Department Services; and
(d) if so, the details thereof and the steps taken by the Government to improve the same.
MINISTER OF STATE FOR COMMUNICATIONS (SHRI TAPAN SIKDAR)
(a) The first joint meeting of National Telephone Advisory Committee and National Telephone Services Committee was held on 7th June` 2000. Though the meeting was a joint one, the focus was on National Telephone Advisory Committee.
(b) Being first inaugural meeting Hon`ble Minister of Communications instead of discussing specific issues, apprised members of National Telephone Advisory Committee about the need and backdrop of the constitution of the committee. He dwelt at length on achievements and shortfall of the department and private service providers and informed members about the steps taken to render the `state of the art` telecom services.
(c) `Consumer Departments Services` is a misnomer as there is no Consumer Departments Services in Ministry of Communications. There is nothing to suggest in the deliberations of the meeting that Hon`ble Minister of Communications was not satisfied with the working of the Department of Telecom Services. However, Hon`ble MOC touched upon unsatisfactory performance of MARR equipments used in VPTs and expeditious clearance of fault and attendance to the public grievances.
(d) i) An action plan has been drawn to replace 1,11,000 MARR systems by Wireless in Local Loop (WLL) System and 1,00,000 more villages will be covered with WLL system in the current year.
ii) A Grievance Cell has been set up to redress public grievance and early clearance of fault, which has already started yielding desired results.
iii) A committee has been set up under Sr.DDG for monitoring performance in rural areas.
iv) Pagers have been supplied to line staff in all state capitals for speedy clearance of faults.