High spectrum costs limit operators to invest in next-gen network infrastructure.
For the first time, the government is likely to dip into the Oil Industry Development Fund (OIDF) to finance part of its fertiliser subsidy programme for 2025-26, according to official sources. The finance ministry has accounted for Rs 23,000 crore in the FY26 Budget as net additional resources to be drawn from dedicated reserve funds, including the OIDF, the Agriculture Infrastructure and Development Fund, and the Universal Service Obligation Fund.
Of the total proposed allocation, over Rs 1 lakh crore is meant for BSNL and MTNL-related expenses, including Rs 82,916 crore infusion in BSNL for technology upgradation and restructuring at BSNL.
Internet major Google has appointed former joint secretary at Niti Aayog Archana Gulati as head of public policy in India. A Google spokesperson confirmed the appointment. Messages sent to Gulati elicited no immediate reply. Gulati was looking after digital communications policy matters at the government think tank and took voluntary retirement in April last year.
On March 13, Minister of State for Finance Pankaj Chaudhary had tabled the second batch of supplementary demands for grants in the House amounting to a total of Rs 2,70,508.89 crore.
The government will conduct a spectrum auction this year, which will facilitate the roll-out of 5G services by private telecom operators during the financial year 2022-23, Finance Minister Nirmala Sitharaman said on Tuesday. "Spectrum auctions will be conducted in 2022 to facilitate the roll-out of 5G mobile services within 2022-23 by private telecom providers," Sitharaman said. She said the telecommunications sector in general and 5G, in particular, can enable growth and offer job opportunities.
The government may be staring at a modest slippage in fiscal deficit for 2022-23 (FY23), with the Ministry of Finance seeking parliamentary approval for additional spending through a second and final tranche of supplementary demands for grants. On Monday, as the Budget session of Parliament resumed, Finance Minister Nirmala Sitharaman sought Parliament approval for additional gross spending of Rs 2.7 trillion in FY23 (which ends on March 31). While net cash outgo is pegged at Rs 1.48 trillion, the rest will be matched by savings or enhanced receipts, the finance ministry said.
The Union Cabinet on Wednesday cleared utilisation of the Universal Service Obligation Fund (USOF) for provision of mobile connectivity in 7,287 uncovered villages across five states at an estimated cost of Rs 6,466 crore. Briefing media on the Cabinet decisions, Information and Broadcasting Minister Anurag Thakur said these uncovered villages of 44 aspirational districts across five states of Andhra Pradesh, Chhattisgarh, Jharkhand, Maharashtra and Odisha will get 4G-based mobile services.
At the end of Dec, the government had Rs 47,273 crore in the USO fund, with annual accruals of about Rs 6,000 crore.
Air India Chairman Rajiv Bansal has been appointed as the new aviation secretary as part of a major top-level bureaucratic reshuffle effected by the Centre on Wednesday. K Rajaraman, additional secretary in the department of economic affairs, has been appointed as secretary, department of telecommunications, a personnel ministry order said.
The whole process will take 2-3 months, which includes advertising, examination of the tender and signing of the agreement.
India may have achieved a teledensity of over 65 per cent, but as many as 62,443 villages are still to get a taste of telecom revolution that started since 1995-96, says the Economic Survey 2010-11.
Scheme likely to come into force by June or July this year; both PSUs have been losing revenues and market share.
To be headed by Ajay Bhattacharya of Universal Service Obligation Fund of Telecom Ministry, the five-member panel has recently been asked to submit a set of guidelines to suggest ways to promote renewable energy options in the sector within the next three months.
With India rolling out 5G services, can telcos get the sizeable 350-400 million 2G customers to upgrade to 4G, or even better -- but very improbably -- straight to 5G?
The Department of Telecommunications has received 21 bids from telecom operators and infrastructure service providers for the Rs 2,395 crore (Rs 23.95 billion) rural telephony project.
The waiver, decided recently by the Telecom Commission, a wing of the DoT, is worth around Rs 200 crore (Rs 2 billion) per year. The commission also decided to reduce the levy towards the Universal Service Obligation Fund from the present 5 per cent to 3 per cent of the adjusted gross revenue.
Currently, USO fund administrator invites bid from interested telcos for setting up infrastructure in rural areas and the process is time consuming.
India needs $70bn of private investment in infrastructure and will not get it without a level playing field.
The government on Monday urged private operators to play a big role in providing rural telephony across the country to reach a respectable level of teledensity.
The government said on Wednesday that the Telegraph Act would be amended to incorporate cellular service providers to get a share from the Universal Service Obligation Fund to connect all villages, highways and rail network.\n\n
State-owned Bharat Snachar Nigam has bagged about 80 per cent of the Department of Telecom's Rs 2,500 crore
The Union Cabinet on Thursday approved the amendment of the Telegraph Act giving statutory status to the Universal Service Obligation Fund.
The government is planning to merge Bharat Broadband Nigam Limited (BBNL) with the loss-making state-run telecom operator Bharat Sanchar Nigam Limited (BSNL) this month, a senior official has said. BSNL chairman and managing director PK Purwar at a recent event organised by the All India Graduate Engineers and Telecom officers Association (AIGETOA) said that the government is giving the telecom firm an opportunity for a turnaround. "The government has taken a policy decision that BBNL is going to be merged into BSNL. "This means all work of BBNL at the pan-India level is going to come to BSNL," Purwar said at the All India Conference of AIGETOA on March 13.
The government said on Friday that all existing multiple access radio relay systems would be replaced with wireless in local loop technology by the next financial year.
Reliance Jio and Bharti Airtel have enough capacity to absorb over 113.9 million Vodafone Idea subscribers who are on 4G if Vodafone Idea has to shut operations.
The mission - unveiled by Communications Minister Ravi Shankar Prasad -- will enable strengthening of technological infrastructure for education, health, entrepreneurship and development.
Telecom Minister Ravi Shankar Prasad is learnt to have approached Finance Minister Arun Jaitley for additional funds to carry out schemes committed under Universal Services Obligation fund scheme.
Analysts have pointed out that with the dues arising out of the SC judgment there could soon be only two private telcos in the country, and not three - Reliance Jio, Bharti Airtel and Vodafone Idea - as now.
As part of the national telecom policy, which is likely to be released next month, various levies and charges including SUC would be reviewed in line with the input tax credit available.
Broadband connectivity to villages has been lagging, with delay in laying of an optical fibre network up to gram panchayats
In the first secretary-level appointments by the Narendra Modi government, Rakesh Garg was on Sunday named the new telecom secretary while Jugal Kishore Mohapatra is to be secretary in the fertilizers ministry.
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