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Thomas K. Thomas

New Delhi , May 20

THE Communication and IT Minister, Mr Dayanidhi Maran, today promised to further bring down the local call tariffs even as policies are being made to usher new technologies and services in the telecom sector over the next one year.

Spelling out the Government's policy in the coming months for the communication sector, Mr Maran said, "Tariff will have to be brought down further, especially for local telephone call charges and mobile roaming charges. We have been doing a lot of planning over the last few months. We have now to implement those plans."

He was speaking on the occasion of completing one year in office as Communication Minister.

The Minister said measures are being taken to make landline telephones more attractive for consumers. "BSNL and Alcatel are jointly working on a project to evolve a software that will allow fixed line users to avail value-added services similar to those enjoyed by mobile users. Once this is completed, fixed line users will also be able to download ring tones and set call back tunes."

3G entry fee: On the proposed entry fee for 3G spectrum, Mr Maran said he was open to the idea of setting a fee as suggested by Mr Ratan Tata, though the Government's thrust would be on keeping the cost of operation at a low level. "We have asked the Wireless Planning Coordination wing of the DoT to look at all the aspects, including the need for releasing additional spectrum. There are instances where operators have exaggerated the lack of radio frequency while they can manage with the given spectrum by putting more cell sites." The Minister said the State-owned Bharat Sanchar Nigam Ltd would expand its cellular network by 40 million next year, of which 10 per cent would be third generation (3G) services.

On the manufacturing front, Mr Maran said BSNL might include a condition in future purchase tenders that would give priority to equipment manufactured within the country. While manufacturers such as Nokia, Ericsson and Alcatel have announced their plans to set up a local unit, Mr Maran said Canadian firm Nortel Networks Corp would also start manufacturing phone equipment in India shortly.

On FDI guidelines, he said the notification on increasing the cap to 74 per cent from 49 per cent would come by month-end with minor changes.

``We have sent the draft to the Ministry of Finance by including some suggestions from industry. One of the suggestions is to seek clarification on Indian nationalised banks and also other banks such as ICICI and HDFC, with foreign equity, participating in the telecom service companies' holdings."

ADC must not fall below Rs 5,000 crore: On Access Deficit Charge (ADC), the Minister said the telecom regulator must ensure that the subsidy to BSNL does not fall below Rs 5,000 crore annually. ``ADC is a subsidy for BSNL's past operations in the rural areas and not for future operations for which the Universal Service Obligation Fund is there. If my rural telephony gets affected due to reduction in ADC, I am not going to sit quiet,'' Mr Maran said

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