Meeting on 17th August 2011at

New Delhi

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Teledensity in NE-I is higher than All India

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Growth in NER is mainly on Wireless Technologies

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USO Fund was created effective from 01.04.2002 with an amendment of Indian Telegraph Act. The objective was to provide access to basic telegraph services to people in rural and remote areas at affordable and reasonable prices.

Originally the thrust was on public & individual access which included Village Public Telephones (VPTs), MARR replacements and Rural Community Phones (RCPs) and Rural lines to individual users (RDELs).

In December 2006, Indian Telegraph Act was amended to include the activities of shared infrastructure, mobile services, broadband connectivity, general infrastructure like OFC etc.

Indian Telegraph Rules have been amended in 2004, 2006 and 2008 for implementation of USOF activities.

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Funded through Universal Access Levy @ 5% of Adjusted Gross Revenue (AGR) from all Service Providers except the pure value added service providers like Internet, Voice Mail, E-Mail service providers etc.

Levy amount is credited to Consolidated Fund of India and made available to USOF after due appropriation by the Parliament.

Provision for Grants and Loans from Government of India

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Activities under USO Fund are taken up under different Streams of Indian Telegraph Rules. Stream I : Provision of Public Telephone Services Stream II : Provision of Household Telephones in Net

High Cost rural & remote Areas. Stream III : Creation of Infrastructure for provision

of Mobile Services in rural & remote areas. Stream IV : Provision of Broadband connectivity to

villages in a phased manner. Stream V : Creation of general infrastructure in

rural and remote areas for development of telecom facilities

Stream VI: Induction of new technological developments in the telecom sector in rural and remote areas

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Village Public Telephones (VPTs) have been provided in 37127 villages out of the total of 40377 inhabited villages in North Eastern Region with financial support from USO Fund.

Under Bharat Nirman 11,982 villages were planned to be provided with VPTs In North East . Villages with population less than 100, those affected with insurgency and those lying in deep forests were excluded for provision of VPTs

For the remaining uncovered inhabited 7245 villages as per Census 2001, USOF has signed agreement with BSNL in Feb 2009. This includes villages with population less than 100, remote & inaccessible locations etc.

All the remaining villages are to be provided with VPTs by Mar’2012.

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S. No.

State Total No. of Villages as per Census 2001

No. of inhabited Villages as per Census 2001

No. of Villages covered with VPTs

No. of Villages yet to be covered with VPTs

1. Assam 26,312 25,124 24,280 844

2. Meghalaya 6,027 5,782 4,856 926

3. Mizoram 817 707 704 3

4. Tripura 870 858 858 0

5. Manipur 2,391 2,315 2,142 173

6. Arunachal Pradesh 4,065 3,863 2,595 1,268

7. Nagaland 1,317 1,278 1,263 15

8. Sikkim 452 450 429 21

Total 42,251 40,377 37,127 3,250

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S. No.

State Villages to be provided with VPTs

Villages covered upto 31.12.2009

No. of Villages yet to be covered

No. of Villages to be covered on DSPTs

No. of Villages dropped from the scheme by BSNL

1. Assam 8,775 8,775 0 0 156

2. Meghalaya 1,504 972 532 433 453

3. Mizoram 93 87 6 0 3

4. Tripura 75 75 0 0 0

5. Manipur 861 849 12 12 15

6. Arunachal Pradesh

646 628 18 17 0

7. Nagaland 28 28 0 0 0

8. Sikkim 0 0 0 0 0

Total 11,982 11,414 568 462 627

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S. No.

State Villages to be provided with VPTs

VPTs provided upto 31.12.2009

Balance VPTs to be provided

% of VPTs pending

1. Assam 2,067 914 1,153 55.782. Meghalaya 1,944 30 1,914 98.463. Mizoram 23 18 5 21.744. Tripura 136 82 54 39.715. Manipur 318 107 211 66.356. Arunachal

Pradesh2,431 125 2,306

94.867. Nagaland 161 117 44 27.338. Sikkim 165 87 78 47.27

Total 7,245 1,480 5,765 79.57

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Dysfunctional VPTs working on Multi Access Radio Relay (MARR) technology are being replaced with that of reliable technology VPTs

BSNL is to replace 12,796 existing dysfunctional Multi Access Radio Relay (MARR) based VPTs in North Eastern Region with reliable technology VPTs

Out of these 12558 MARR based VPT have been replaced as on 31.07.2011

Replacement of remaining MARR based VPTs are not feasible on conventional technologies and are to be replaced by satellite phones.

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S. No.

State Total MARR based VPTs to be replaced

MARR based VPTs replaced upto 31.07.2011

Balance MARR based VPTs to be replaced

1. Assam 9,294 9,197 97

2. Meghalaya 1,056 957 99

3. Mizoram 527 525 2

4. Tripura 318 318 0

5. Manipur 547 531 16

6. Arunachal Pradesh 440 416 24

7. Nagaland 544 544 0

8. Sikkim 70 70 0

Total 12,796 12,558 238

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S. No.

State Total RCPs to be provided

RCPs provided

1. Assam 1,913 1,913

2. Meghalaya 28 28

3. Mizoram 21 21

4. Tripura 207 207

5. Manipur 89 89

6. Arunachal Pradesh 7 7

7. Nagaland 90 90

8. Sikkim 0 0

Total 2,355 2,355

2355 Rural Community Phones (RCPs)] were to be provided by BSNL in North Eastern Region in villages with population exceeding 2,000 and not having PCO facility

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Agreements were signed with M/s BSNL in March 2005 for provision of individual rural household Direct Exchange Lines (RDELs) to be installed during 01.04.2005 and 31.03.2007 in North Eastern Region

RDELs were to be installed in the eligible 104 Short Distance Charging Areas (SDCAs), where cost of providing telephone connection is more than the revenue earned

1,44,791 RDELs have been provided in North East states till 31.03.2010 i.e. till the closure of the scheme

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S. No.

State Total No. of SDCAs

No. of Eligible SDCAs

RDELs installed upto 31.12.2009

1. Assam 46 26 65,549

2. Meghalaya 14 13 11,054

3. Mizoram 9 9 13,081

4. Tripura 7 5 27,086

5. Manipur 13 10 6,436

6. Arunachal Pradesh 33 30 2,781

7. Nagaland 10 10 17,641

8. Sikkim 2 1 1,163

Total 134 104 1,44,791

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The Scheme was launched for Setting up and managing infrastructure sites for provision of mobile services in rural and remote areas, where there is no existing fixed wireless/ mobile coverage

The habitations of more than 2000 populations covered

Infrastructure so created to be shared by three service providers for provision of mobile services

The agreements effective from 01.06.2007 were signed with the successful bidders in May 2007

As on 31.07.2011, 515 towers out of 574 towers have been set up in NE Region

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S. No.

State Name of the Infrastructure Provider

Total Number of Towers to be setup

Number of Towers commissioned as on 31.07.2011

% Achievement

1. Assam RCIL 87 87 100

2. Meghalaya

KEC 108 107 99.07

3. Mizoram KEC 43* 37 86.04

4. Tripura BSNL 115 115 100

5. Manipur BSNL 97 60 61.85

6. Arunachal Pradesh

BSNL 67 61 61.85

7. Nagaland BSNL 51 42 82.35

8. Sikkim VESL 6 6 100

Total 574 515 89.72%

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S. No.

State No. of Towers commissioned as on 31.07.2011

BTS installedAircel

BTS installedRTL/RCL

BTS installedBSNL

Total BTSs commissioned as on 31.07.2011

1. Assam 87 87 87 87 261

2. Meghalaya 107 88 60 69 217

3. Mizoram 37 24 5 23 52

4. Tripura 115 78 12 91 88

5. Manipur 60 6 33 0 39

6. Arunachal Pradesh

61 4 54 0 58

7. Nagaland 42 6 12 0 18

8. Sikkim 6 NA 5 NA 11 (6 VESL, 5 RTL)

Total 515 293 268 267 774/1545

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An Agreement was signed with BSNL on 20.01.09 for subsidy disbursement towards provision of wire-line broadband connectivity in rural areas.

The speed of the broadband connections shall be at least 512 kbps always on, with the capability to deliver data, voice and video services in the fixed mode.

Support to be provided for 31 BB connections and 1 Kiosk per rural exchange

The subsidy disbursement is for Broadband connections, Customer Premises Equipment (CPE) Computer/Computing devices Setting up of Kiosks for public access to broadband services.

Individual Users, Institutional Users such as Gram Panchayats, Hr. secondary schools and Public Health Centers, Kiosks etc are entitled for support

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S. No.

State No. of Rural Exchanges

No. of Broadband Connections to be Provided

Broadband Connections Provided

1. Assam 429 13,299 1,660

2. Meghalaya 56 1,736 91

3. Mizoram 35 1,085 153

4. Tripura 58 1,798 438

5. Manipur 54 1,674 125

6. Arunachal Pradesh 105 3,255 177

7. Nagaland 62 1,922 25

8. Sikkim 47 1,457 54

Total 846 26,226 2,723

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The scheme envisages to provide subsidy support for augmentation, creation and management of intra-district SDHQ-DHQ OFC Network

The aims is to make available the network capacity on sharing basis to other service providers for transport of rural/remote area traffic at the prescribed rates

The approach is to utilize spare fiber and multiplex capacity wherever available in the network as well as utilize existing premises and upgrade the existing capacity as required, install new OFC routes to SDHQ still not having OFC connectivity

To start with, Assam has been taken up as first state. BSNL (the selected bidder) has installed about 127 nodes so far (Out of 354).

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AreaMARR-A

MARR-B

MOB-I RCP RDEL-A RDEL-B RDEL-D RDEL-P RDEL-XNEW VPT-I

NEW VPT-II

VPT OPEX

WIRELINE-BB

Grand Total

ASSAM 30.37 1.55 2.60 6.29 33.17 51.46 8.84  3.60 16.95 0.00 17.61 1.40 173.83

NE-I 2.90 1.85 13.31 0.19 8.16 29.83 3.44  3.31 5.69 0.92 6.55 0.25 76.40

NE-II 2.93 0.62 1.64 0.28 14.66 26.25    4.94 6.41 1.41 0.86 0.46 60.46

Total for NER

36.20 4.02 17.55 6.76 55.99 107.54 12.28 0.00 11.84 29.04 2.34 25.01 2.10 310.68

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Cumulative Subsidy Disbursement upto June 2011 – Rs. 14,212. 55 Crore

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A scheme is envisaged for provision of integrated mobile voice & broadband services in all left out uncovered rural & remote areas of the country including those in North Eastern States. The scheme also envisages use of renewable energy resources (solar/wind/hybrid) for powering of these sites.

USO Fund is working on a scheme for providing financial assistance by way of subsidy for the wireless broadband active infrastructure by utilizing the existing passive infrastructure available with the Telecom service providers. This scheme would provide broadband coverage to villages in a phased manner. The Scheme is likely to be launched shortly.

After the launch of the Augmentation, Creation and Management of Intra-District SDHQ-DHQ OFC Network Scheme in Assam, the NE Circles (comprising States of Meghalaya, Manipur, Tripura, Mizoram, Arunachal Pradesh, & Nagaland) are being taken up for implementation. The bids stand evaluated, Railtel has emerged as L1 bidder and signing of the agreement is under process.

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Difficulty in acquisition of land Poor connectivity of roads and public

transport Difficulty in transportation Lack of Electric supply/connections Road cutting permissions not being

received Extortion/ demand of ransom/

collection of unauthorized taxes

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Frequent strikes, curfews and economic blockades

Frequent road cuts Various permissions required to be

taken from State Government Agencies- ROW, work permits, Tower charges

SWAN Project ready and awaiting State Govt. Project implementing agency

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