(With corrections)

New Delhi, May 24 (UNI) The Government today extended help to telecom companies that will bring out ''affordable'' CDMA handsets priced at Rs 1,000 and below, a move that will increase tele-density in rural areas which is currently at a low of two per cent.

''We will help the company which comes up with the plan of rolling out CDMA handsets costing less than Rs 1,000 in the rural areas,'' said Member (Technology), DoT, Ministry of Communications and IT K Sridhara while addressing the 'International Conference on CDMA India 2007' here.

Presently, only two per cent of the India's 800 million people in the rural areas use mobiles.

CDMA technology, launched in India in 2004, has a subscriber base of 46 million out of the total 165 million using mobile phones.

The target for CDMA subscriber base is 75 million by the end of fiscal 2007-08, CDMA Development Group Country Head (India) B V Raman told reporters.

CDMA or code division multiple access is a rival technology to the more popular GSM or global system of mobiles.

UNI