Govt. urged to ensure fair play in WLL deployment

By Our Special Correspondent

NEW DELHI, AUG. 16. While appreciating the Communications Minister, Mr. Ram Vilas Paswan's drive to expedite rural connectivity by using the WLL technology, Parliamentarians belonging to the Consultative Committee of the Ministry of Communications sought certain safeguards from the Government. They also urged the Government to ensure fair play and avoid favouritism while deploying the WLL-based systems in rural areas.

The Members said necessary safeguards should be made to prevent the misuse of WLL licences for providing cellular services. The benefit of the new technology should be uniformly extended to all the villages. This aspect is particularly critical, because, in the past, Mr. Paswan had ``made major changes in the list of towns where WLL was proposed to be deployed in order to favour his voters and political allies''. Another Member drew attention to regular updating of the technology as telecom was a high- technology area. Mr. Paswan assured the Members that there would be no discrimination and the benefit of the WLL technology would be uniformly available to all. On the failure of the MARR system which till recently was the great hope of providing phones in villages, Mr. Paswan attributed the failure to lack of proper maintenance.

On the other hand, the WLL would be useful in tough terrain where laying of cable was difficult. Besides it was cost- effective and can cover a large number of villages. Earlier, Mr. Paswan said the Government had planned to instal village public phones in all villages by the year 2002. This objective was difficult to achieve as laying of cable was time-consuming and required enormous amounts of money which the country could not afford.

The WLL technology, he said, would help double the country's teledensity by the year 2003 and raise it to 15 by the year 2010. Among those who attended the meeting were Mr. S. Niraikulathan, Mr. Nilotpal Basu, Mr. A. K. S. Vijayan, Mr. Bhan Singh Bhaura, and Mr. Sharif-ud-Din Sharif.

Send this article to Friends by E-Mail

Section  : National
Previous : Concern over attack on journalists in T.N.
Next     : Rajasthan decision on PG medical admissions upheld