TELE-DENSITY REACHES 5.49 PER HUNDRED
RAJYA SABHA
Tele-Density in the
country has reached a level of 5.49 per hundred as on 30th
June, 2003. Delhi leads the table with 31.67 per cent, followed
by Punjab which has 12.94 per cent, Kerala (11.83), Maharashtra
(9.89), Andaman&Nicobar (9.64), Himachal Pradesh (8.80), Tamil
Nadu (8.55), Gujarat (8.12), Karnataka (7.31), Haryana (6.60),
Andhra Pradesh (6.05), West Bengal (4), Uttaranchal (3.99), Rajasthan
(3.67), Madhya Pradesh (3.19), North-East (2.79), Jammu &
Kashmir (2.53), Orissa (2.44), Uttar Pradesh (2.35), Assam (1.96),
Jharkhand (1.58), Bihar (1.45) and Chattisgarh (1.40).
The above information
was given by the Minister of State for Communications and Information
Technology, Shri Ashok Pradhan in a written reply to a question
by Shri Harish Rawat in the Rajya Sabha today. He said that the
National Telecom Policy (NTP’99) envisaged overall tele-density
of 7 by the year 2005 and 15 by the year 2010.
Steps being taken
for making telephone availability are: Basic services have been
opened for competition; Wireless in Local Loop (WLL) has been
introduced for providing telephone connection in urban/semi urban
and rural areas; New technologies like WLL (CDMA, CorDECT) and
GSM have been introduced in rural areas for faster roll out; Two
more cellular operators have been permitted in each circle; and
Laying of Optical fibre and jelly filled under ground cables in
access network.
