A Raja calls for strengthening broadband services

New Delhi, Sept 30 : Union Minister for Communications and Information Technology A. Raja today asked public sector BSNL to give top most priority to the growth of cellular and broadband services.

Speaking at the 15th Heads of Circles Conference of BSNL here, Raja expressed worries over the dwindling market share of BSNL in the mobile telecom segment.

He called upon BSNL officials to workout a strategy to restore BSNL's market position.

Raja expressed confidence that BSNL will continue to contribute more than 50 per cent in achieving a national target of 20 million broadband connections by 2010.

The Minister wanted the telecom giant to pay urgent attention to good quality of service, customer care and responsiveness to the needs of customers to beat the fresh challenges of competition arising out of the impending launch of Number Portability.

He wanted the customer grievances redressal system to be strengthened.

Raja emphasized the need to upgrade the skills of the technical and managerial staff and providing them adequately training.

The Minister asked for more intelligent financial management for better profit margins, keeping down the costs, efficient utilization of capital assets, increasing revenue through sharing of infrastructure and reduction of outstanding dues.

He urged the BSNL management to improve the Value Added Services (VAS) to meet customer's aspirations and increase revenue. He also called upon BSNL to ensure immediate rollout of 3G and WI-MAX services based on the spectrum already allocated to it by the government.

Pointing to the gap between the all India tele-density of 30 per cent and the rural tele-density of 11 per cent, the Minister underlined that BSNL has to bridge this digital divide.

He asked BSNL managers to devise newer methods to reach such areas not only in terms of access network but also through good distribution network.

The conference was attended by Siddhartha Behura, Secretary, Department of Telecom; Kuldeep Goyal, CMD, BSNL; Members of the BSNL Board, Chief General Managers from BSNL Circles and DOT and BSNL officials.

ANI