ICA moots free handsets for 50 mn BPL families

NEW DELHI, INDIA: In an effort to further strengthen rural telecom penetration in India, the Indian Cellular Association (ICA) have recently sought Rs 5,000 crore from the Universal Services Obligation (USO) fund to provide free cellular phone and a connection to families coming under the below poverty line (BPL) category.

In a proposal to the Telecom Regulatory Authority of India (TRAI), USO said that in order to give free-of-cost mobile handsets and connections with 100 free calls per month for the 50 million BPL families in the country, an investment of approximately Rs 4,000-5,000 crore is needed.

According to USO, the free mobile phone “has the potential of transforming the life of many families/ individuals in this category”. The mobile handset provided can be a basic phone with an AM radio, it said.

“The AM radio can be very useful for listening to relevant local language content. These radio stations should be made interactive and calls to these radio stations should be made free of cost,” it suggested.

“A free calling package of up to 100 calls per month free of cost for a period of two years should be provided along with the skills mapping of these families, which needs to be done at the time of providing these connections/ handsets,” said Pankaj Mahendroo, president, ICA, the industry association representing handset makers.

“These families have unutilised/under utilised skills and competencies, which can be used, provided these are mapped out and then aggregated in a particular geographical area, for example, say 20 sq km. These skills/competencies can be made available based on requests received through voice calls and SMS,” he added.

The IT backbone along with local language call centres need to be created, said.

He also said content providers should also be provided funds out of USO to develop relevant applications in collaboration with rural institutions. This apart service centres should also be set up in rural areas.