North East, MP and Maharashtra lead telecom growth rate

New Delhi, Aug 11 (UNI) The North-east, Madhya Pradesh and Maharashtra topped the list of states that have been adding telecom subscribers in July 2006, which saw a net addition of 5.14 million.

Figures released by the Communications and IT Ministry today said the the rising trend in the number of new telecom subscribers continued to be maintained in the month of July 2006 also, with a net addition of about 5.14 million phones - an average daily addition of 1.66 lakh lines.

As a result, the total number of telephones in the country crossed 158.32 million, as against a total of 153.18 million as on June 30, 2006, representivs a growth of 3.3 per cent. The growth in July 2006 was 49 per cent over that of July 2005. Almost the entire growth registered was in the wireless segment - with GSM contributing 3.6 million and CDMA contributing 1.46 million, respectively. The additions in the fixed line segment during the month was about 0.08 million.

The overall teledensity improved further to 14.12 per cent in July 2006 from 13.68 per cent in June 2006 and from 9.60 per cent as on July 31, 2005. The North East and Madhya Pradesh telecom circles recorded the highest growth rate (8.48 per cent) in the GSM segment, followed by the West Bengal and Andaman&Nicobar telecom circle (6.80 per cent).

In the CDMA segment, the total subscriber base registered a growth of 4.75 per cent with a net addition of 1.46 million subscribers. Maharashtra and Andhra Pradesh telecom circles contributed the maximum to this addition. Maharashtra alone added five lakh subscribers during the month.

The growth of broadband connections improved further and at the end of June 2006, over 1.55 million broadband connections were provided and coverage of broadband connectivity by public sector service providers has reached 388 cities. Further, the total number of existing ISP licencees is 406.

Under Bharat Nirman Programme, of the targeted 66,822 villages remaining to be covered on November 2004, a total of 27481 villages have been provided with Public Telephones. However, the remaining 39341 villages having more than 100 population and not lying in thick forest area etc., are to yet to be provided with a public telephone.

UNI RT RA RAI1852