Telegraph Act passed in RS

New Delhi, Dec 13 (UNI) The Indian Telegraph (amendment) Bill, 2006 was passed today by the Rajya Sabha that would strive to decrease the rural-urban divide in the country where cities have witnessed a boom in telephone usage.

The villages had lagged behind and it was to ameliorate this situation that the amendment to the more-than-century-old Act had been enabled.

Lok Sabha had already passed the Bill.

Speaking after a two-hour discussion on the issue, Communications and IT Minister Dayanidhi Maran said more villages will be covered and ''we are confident that the target of 250 million phones by next year will be met''.

Mr Maran said mobile technology was booming in the country and it was third largest in the world with over 100 million GSM connections. China has 400 million, while Russia has 200 million. He recalled that from the outgoing and incoming tariff of Rs 16.80 in the country, it was today just Re one for a call and the incoming was free.

Clarifying on the Universal Service Obligation (USO) fund, Mr Maran said it was collected from the license fee of operators and this money was used for service obligations in rural and inaccesible areas. Today, 98 per cent of it was used by BSNL.

He said landline phones were not financially viable as they were 30 per cent more expensive. BSNL, he said, had added 16 million mobile connections in the past two and a half years.

In rural areas, towers for mobile phones would be set up that would cater to at least three operators, Mr Maran said. ''We are even trying to bring broadband in rural areas.'' India, he said, had taken the lead in Wimax technology by initiatives taken by CDOT and Alcatel.

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