The HINDU BUSINESS LINE
Saturday, September 15, 2001

Teledensity set to exceed target

Our Bureau
KOLKATA, Sept. 14

        The  country is set to achieve a higher  teledensity  of 17.5 per 100 by
2010 against a target of 15 set by the Government, according to Mr Tapan Sikdar,
Union Minister of State for Communications.

        At present,  India has a teledensity of 3.7 per 100 which is expected to
go up to seven per 100 by 2005.

        Mr Sikdar told  members of the Bengal  National  Chamber of Commerce and
Industry  (BNCCI) here that the basic telecom network in India was growing at 22
per cent per annum while cellular and Internet services were growing at over 100
per cent annually.

        The Indian telecom  network has emerged as the 8th largest in the world,
up from 14th barely two years ago.

        According to him, the focus now was on providing an appropriate  telecom
infrastructure that would facilitate "proliferation of information techonology".
The idea was to benefit from  convergence  and bridge the digital  divide across
the country.

        He,  however,  cautioned  that  this  would  not be  possible  if labour
productivity in the telecom sector did not improve.

        In this  context,  he cited a McKinsey  report  which stated that labour
productivity in the Indian telecom sector was 25 per cent of that in the US.

        "Such a scenario emerging in the age of convergence is alarming. We must
improve productivity. To survive as a nation we need it."

        The  Minister  felt  that   emerging   technologies   would   facilitate
applications  such as tele-education  and tele-medicine  which would benefit the
rural population immensely.

        In the context of developments in the postal system,  Mr Sikdar said the
Department of Posts was regularly taking revenue-generating initiatives aimed at
bridging the deficit between revenue and expenditure. He expressed the hope that
this would be achieved within the next five years.