[India] Connect villages or lose licences, Mahajan tells telecom players

["Irfan Khan" <khania@super.net.pk>]

Connect villages or lose licences, Mahajan tells telecom players 

PTI [ SUNDAY, MARCH 24, 2002  6:18:56 PM ] 

MUMBAI: The government on Sunday threatened to cancel licences of 
private basic telecom services operators, including Reliance, Tata 
and Bharti, if they failed to meet their rural telephone connection 
targets. 

The basic service providers like Reliance in Gujarat, Tata's in 
Andhra Pradesh, Bharti in Madhya Pradesh, Hughes in Maharashtra, 
Shyam Telecom in Rajasthan and HFCL in Punjab, were yet to meet their 
targets for connections in villages and "we will review their plans 
and performance by June," Information Technology and Communications 
Minister Pramod Mahajan said. 

"In case their performance was not up to the mark, we have the option 
to withdraw their licences," Mahajan told reporters at a function to 
inaugurate the Indian Institute of Software Engineering. 

Reliance Industries vice-chairman and managing director, Mukesh 
Ambani, however, refuted the Minister's charge saying "we have met 
the target of rural telephone connections in Gujarat and may in fact 
exceed them with growth plans." 

Hughes Telecom had set up only 150 rural telephone connections in 
Maharashtra while state-owned Bharat Sanchar Nigam was far ahead of 
the private operator, Mahajan said. 

There were still 10,000 villages in Maharashtra without telephone 
connections, Mahajan said, adding that BSNL and private telecom 
operators were facing hurdles in laying down telecom lines in various 
states, including Maharashtra, due to steep fees and other difficult 
regulations. 

Maharashtra Chief Minister Vilasrao Deshmukh assured to clear the 
difficulties. PTI 

source: 
http://economictimes.indiatimes.com/articleshow.asp?art_id=4776525