Question : TELEPHONE CONNECTIONS IN VILLAGES

(a) whether the Government has taken a serious view of giving no more time to the private basic telephone service providing companies for fulfilling their contractual liabilities of providing telephone connections in the villages;

(b) if so, the details thereof;

(c) whether the private basic telephone service providing companies have failed in providing telephone connections despite the repeated extension of time limit given to them in the past;

(d) if so, the details of those private basic telephone service providing companies;

(e) whether the Government proposes to cancel the licences of these companies;

(f) if so, the details thereof; and

(g) if not, the reasons therefor?

THE MINISTER OF COMMUNICATIONS AND INFORMATION TECHNOLOGY (SHRI DAYANIDHI MARAN)

(a) to (g): A statement is laid on the Table of the House.

STATEMENT TO BE LAID ON THE TABLE OF THE LOK SABHA IN RESPECT OF PARTS (a) TO (g) OF LOK SABHA STARRED QUESTION NO. 39 FOR 2ND MARCH, 2005 REGARDING TELEPHONE CONNECTIONS IN VILLAGES.

(a) to (g) The six private basic service operators who were granted licenses in the year 1997-98, were to provide a fix number of Village Public Telephones (VPTs) in their respective service area. The details of Village Public Telephone to be provided by these six Basic Private Operators are enclosed as Annexure-I. Due to delay in commencement of Service and non-provisioning of direct Exchange Lines and village public Telephones Liquidated Damages amounting to Rs. 53.75 Crores were recovered from these Private Basic Service Operators. The details are enclosed as Annexure-II.

Consequent to announcement of Unified Access Service Licence regime, the six private basic telephone service operators have migrated to Unified Access Service Licence regime in November, 2003 after paying applicable difference of entry fee and thereby the roll out obligations have changed to coverage of District Headquarters instead of provisioning of fixed number of Direct Exchange Lines (DELs) and VPTs.

ANNEXURE-I

 VPT STATUS
VPTs Bharti Tata Tata Relian Shyam HFCL Tota Telene Teleserv Teleservic ce Telelin Infotel l t Ltd. ices es Teleco k Punjab M.P. A.P. (Maharasht m Rajasth ra) Gujara an Ltd. t
Month of June, March, October, May, June, Septemb
Commence- 1998 1999 1998 2000 2000 er,
ment of 2000
service
No. of 16500 9635 25760 8635 31834 5442### 97806
VPTs
Committed
in first 3
years from
effective
date#
No. of 611 1408 2643 4114 3010 879 12665
VPTs
provided
as on
31.10.2003##
#	=	These commitments were to be met by 30.09.1998 in case	of AP, Gujarat, Punjab and by 30.9.99 in case of	Maharashtra. For MP and Rajasthan the same were to be	completed by 30.9.2000 and 4.3.2001 respectively.
##	=	Figures are as reported by the licensees.
###	=	As all villages have been covered in Punjab by BSNL,	the faulty MARRs are replaced by the private licensees.
ANNEXURE-II
DETAILS OF LD CHARGES FROM PRIVATE BASIC SERVICE OPERATORS
Name of Service Month of Total LD LD for LD charged
the Area commencemen charged delay for non
Operator t of for non in commission service commission provis ing of ing of ion of service service & VPT (in delay in and crores of provision DEL Rs.) of VPTs (in and DELls crores (in crores of of Rs.) Rs.)
Bharti Madhya Pr. June, 1998 4.00 4.00 Nil
Tata Andhra March, 1999 13.00 6.50 6.50
Teleservi Pradesh
ces
Tata Maharash October, 7.75 6.50 1.25
Teleservi tra 1998
ces
(Maharash
tra) Ltd.
Reliance Gujarat May 2000 13.00 6.50 6.50
Shyam Rajastha June, 2000 8.00 4.00 4.00
Telelink n
HFCL Punjab September, 8.00 4.00 4.00
Infotel 2000 Total 53.75 31.50 22.25