The Universal Service Obligation (USO) Fund has undertaken several initiatives to provide mobile and broadband connectivity to rural areas. These include providing village public telephones (VPTs) to all inhabited villages (including the Bharat Nirman project); providing individual telephone lines to all villages; launching the Shared Mobile Infrastructure Scheme in two phases; providing broadband connectivity on fixed wireline; establishing optic fibre cable connectivity in Assam; and supporting fixed wireline in lieu of access deficit charges (ADC).

VPTs under Bharat Nirman
Of the 66,822 VPTs, 57,181 VPTs (86 per cent) have been provided under the Bharat Nirman project. Going forward, 4,034 VPTs will be provided on digital satellite phone terminals (DSPTs). During the past three years, the project has penetrated 46,862 uncovered villages.

VPTs in all inhabited villages
Currently, support is being provided to 558,000 existing VPTs, including those under the Bharat Nirman project. The VPTs in the remaining inhabited villages (as per the 2001 Census) will also be provided by Bharat Sanchar Nigam Limited (BSNL) by March 2011. The USO Fund will provide subsidy support.

Shared Mobile Infrastructure Scheme (Phase I)
Under Phase I of the Shared Mobile Infrastructure Scheme, a total of 7,871 towers were to be set up, of which 4,755 towers have been constructed as of end-February 2009.The infrastructure was to be set up by six players: BSNL, GTL, KEC, Quippo Telecom Infrastructure Limited (QTIL), Reliance Communication Infrastructure Limited (RCIL) and Vodafone. An operatorwise break-up illustrates that, by the end of February 2009, BSNL had set up 3,280 out of the planned 6,175 towers; GTL had set up 391 out of 421 towers; KEC had constructed 318 out of 384 towers; QTIL had set up 88 towers as planned; RCIL had constructed 370 out of 472 towers, and Vodafone had constructed 308 out of 331 towers.

The infrastructure providers faced several challenges while constructing towers under this scheme. Acquisition of land, especially in the tribal areas, was a timeconsuming process; the state electricity boards did not provide electrical connections; in some areas, projects were stalled owing to Naxalite activity; and a few project sites were inaccessible in areas such as the Northeast owing to difficult terrain.

Shared Mobile Infrastructure Scheme (Phase II)
Phase II is currently under way. It will see the setting up of 10,128 additional towers.Also, previously uncovered villages or clusters of villages with a population of 500 (and now 100) are to be included. The pre-bidding conference took place in January 2009 and the project's tender is to be floated shortly.

Broadband connectivity on wireline
The USO Fund signed an agreement with BSNL in January 2009 to provide broadband services to rural areas. According to the terms of the agreement, an "always on" 512 kbps connection is to be provided to government institutions and individual users. Also, broadband capacity for 1.8 million connections is to be created in 28,000 rural exchanges.

The scheme is to be extended to other operators, subject to their fulfilling the eligibility criteria, and the entire project is to be completed in five years with an estimated subsidy outflow of Rs 15 billion.

Optic Fibre Cable Connectivity Scheme
This scheme aims to augment the optic fibre cable (OFC) network between block and district headquarters in rural areas in order to strengthen backbone connectivity to carry rural voice and data traffic.

The scheme is to be tested in Assam initially, while actual implementation is to be carried out in 2009-10. The estimated subsidy outflow for rolling out the scheme in Assam is Rs 1.1 billion.

Several other projects are in the pipeline. For example, broadband connectivity on wireless technology is planned, and will be carried out subject to availability and allotment of spectrum. Similarly, broadband connectivity on satellite technology is under consideration for making the DSPTs (provided by BSNL) broadband enabled.Also, OFC connectivity will be tested in Lakshadweep before being extended to other states and union territories.
Ajay Bhattacharya, Administrator,USO Fund, Department of Telecommunications