THE MINISTER OF STATE IN THE MINISTRY OF COMMUNICATIONS AND INFORMATION TECHNOLOGY (DR. SHAKEEL AHMAD)
Reply pertaining to Department of Telecommunications
(a) Yes, Sir.
(b) Separate funds are earmarked for providing telecommunication facility in Tribal areas.
(c) During the current financial year 2004-05, Rs. 85.03 crore has been provided for Tribal Sub-Plan areas of Orissa Telecom. Circle for installation of 9 New Exchanges, 3K Cordect Wireless in Local Loop (WLL) System, 11.5K Mobile Switching Centre (MSC) based WLL System and 1,44,300 Global Switching Module (GSM) Mobile capacity along with laying of 75 Kms. Optical Fibre Cable.
(d) Out of 18,477 Tribal villages, 12,844 Tribal villages are already covered and 5,633 Tribal villages are still to be covered. Out of 5,633 remaining villages, 3,376 villages are planned to be covered on Digital Satellite Phone Terminal (DSPT) by November, 2007 in a phased manner. The balance left out villages are not possible to be covered due to reasons such as, non availability of custodian, depopulated villages and villages having population of less than 100 etc. In Tribal areas, there are 120 Blocks and all the Block have been covered.
Reply pertaining to Department of Posts
(a) & (b) The Department of Posts does not have a separate Tribal Sub Plan, since it has provided liberal norms for expanding the network in Tribal, hilly, desert and remote areas in the country including Orissa. The norms include subsidy to the extent of 85% on the recurring cost of each Extra Departmental Post Office. Details of the norms are given in the Annexure .
(c) & (d) No separate funds have been earmarked for the Tribal Sub Plan for reasons cited in para (a) & (b) above. During the current year, 2 Post Offices have been opened in the tribal areas of Orissa. A total number of 2,713 Post Offices are serving tribal villages of Orissa.
ANNEXURE
NORMS FOR OPENING POST OFFICES
1. Norms for opening Extra Departmental Branch Post Offices:
1.1 Population:
(a) In Normal Areas: 3000 population in a group of villages (including the PPO village).
(b) In Hilly, Tribal, Desert and Inaccessible Areas: 500 population in an individual village or 1000 population in a group of villages. 1.2 Distance:
(a) In Normal Areas: The minimum distance from the nearest existing post office will be 3 Kms.
(b) In Hilly, Tribal, Desert and Inaccessible Areas:
The distance limit will be the same as above except that in Hilly Areas, the minimum distance limit can be relaxed by the Directorate in cases where such relaxation is warranted by special circumstances which should be clearly explained while submitting a proposal.
1.3 Anticipated income:
(a) In Normal Areas: The minimum anticipated revenue will be 331/3% of the cost.
(b) In Hilly, Tribal, Desert and Inaccessible Areas: The minimum anticipated income will be 15% of the cost. It is further to be ensured that as a result of opening of new post office, the loss in respect of parent post office does not increase beyond the permissible limit nor is its income reduced below the minimum prescribed.
2. Criteria for upgrading/opening Departmental Sub Post Offices:
(a) In Rural Areas:
The Minimum work load of the Extra Departmental Branch Post Office, proposed to be upgraded, should be five hours per day. The permissible limit of annual loss is Rs. 2400/- in Normal Rural areas and Rs. 4800/- in Tribal and Hilly areas.
It is further to be ensured that as a result of the opening of a new post office, the loss in respect of the parent post office does not increase beyond the permissible limit nor is its income reduced below the minimum prescribed.
(b) In Urban Areas:
In Urban areas, the post office should initially be self-supporting, and, at the time of the first annual review, it should show a 5% profit to be eligible for further retention.
The minimum distance between two post offices should be 1.5 Kms. in cities with a population of 20 lakhs and above, and 2 Kms, in other Urban Areas. No two delivery offices, however, should be closer than 5 Kms. from each other.
Heads of Circles have powers to relax the distance condition in 10% of the cases.
A Delivery Post Office in Urban Area should have a minimum of 7 Postmen`s beats.
