BSNL to take more phones to villages

Bharat Sanchar Nigam Limited aimed to take more telephone connections, both mobile and fixed line, to the villages in the state, S Rama Ganapathi, chief general manager of the public sector telecom carrier's Karnataka Circle told reporters here on Tuesday.

BSNL will give one connection each to some 1,500 villages that have populations of 2,000 or more, Ganapathi said, at a function to celebrate "World Telecom Day" here. BSNL's in-house Sanchar awards were also presented at the function, recognising staff performance.

While Karnataka's 27,000 odd villages each had a "village public phone", rural tele-density hadn't improved. From 0.3 connections per 100 people in 1996, it had only climbed to 1.74 connections per 100 people, he said.

Of the 1,500 connections BSNL planned to give, 600 had been set up and the balance would be provided by March 2006, he said.

BSNL has also proposed to take more mobile technology to the villages and make CDMA connections accessible in rural areas. It would also aim to make connections available on demand, though currently there was a waiting list of 92,000 people.

At the taluk level, the telecom carrier had proposed to the state government that it be allowed to build and operate wide area networks for all the e-governance projects, up to the taluk level. "This proposal is under active consideration", Ganapathi said.

Meanwhile, in June, BSNL will augment the cellular phone capacity, of its Cell One mobile phone service, by 16 lakh connections, with an investment of Rs 480 crore. Presently it has 7.4 lakh subscribers. Mobile technology had reached 319 towns in the state and another 340 towns would be added soon, he said. Optic fibres too had reached most rural exchanges.