NEW DELHI: Every village in India is expected to have public telephone service by 2009-end, as state-owned BSNL has started installing public telephones in the remaining 50,000 villages following a go-ahead from DoT.
Bharat Sanchar Nigam (BSNL) has started work on the second phase of the village public telephone scheme, which includes those villages that appeared in Census 2001 and were left out earlier, an official statement said here on Friday. The village public telephone scheme will be provided subsidy support from the Department of Telecom's Universal Service Obligation Fund. Installation of public telephones in all villages is expected to be completed by the end of the next year, it said. The government is implementing a scheme to provide subsidised public telephone facility to 66,822 villages under the Bharat Nirman programme. Out of these, 54,700 villages have already been covered and work in the remaining villages would be completed this year. All villages have been brought under the scheme except those having population of less than 100, those lying in deep forests and those affected with insurgency. About 5,000 remote villages are being provided with the telephone service using satellite technology. BSNL has already provided telephones to 5,50,000 villages across the country. It has extended 11 million GSM connections in the rural areas. Its GSM coverage has reached out to about 2,56,000 villages. That apart, the company covers 75 per cent of the villages through its WLL network. The telecom giant has been providing the high-speed broadband services in 30,500 villages. -- As long as forever, I will stay by your side, I'll be your companion, Your friend and your guide!!! Join Access India convention: For updates on it visit: http://accessindia.org.in/harish/convention.htm Registration closes on September 12th!! To unsubscribe send a message to [EMAIL PROTECTED] with the subject unsubscribe. To change your subscription to digest mode or make any other changes, please visit the list home page at http://accessindia.org.in/mailman/listinfo/accessindia_accessindia.org.in
