Taking communication to hinterlands…

Indian IT and Telecom story just refuses to slow down despite global slowdown, rising inflation domestically. At the backdrop of the first ever Indian Mobile Congress’08 held in Chennai that had the theme, ‘The Great Rural Revolution’, Siddhartha Behura, Secretary for Department of Telecommunications and Chairman of Telecom Commission spoke to Prasad Ramasubramanian of CyberMedia News on the rural thrust of Indian telecom. Excerpts from the interview:

Telecom subscribers are added at a blistering pace. Is the objective only in terms of adding numbers to the table?

Not at all, adding numbers is definitely good but we wouldn’t stop at that. Telecom has to be used as a tool to empower the citizens and to bridge the digital divide. Our future generations must be able to experience and avail world-class service and data communications at affordable rates.

How does possessing a simple mobile phone and an affordable handset help in lowering poverty?

See, the affordability of mobile phones has tremendously helped in spreading mobile services rapidly across all the strata of the society. The maximum gainers are the small businessmen and vendors such as vegetable vendors, electricians, and barbers etc, who had seen significant rise in their businesses owing to the uptake of mobile phones.

Mobile phones have gone ahead from just a communication device in the country.

Right, it is serving different purposes for different segments of the people. For the businessmen, it is a business device on the go, for the elderly people and the women it acts as a security device, keeping them connected to the family and for the younger generation it is a tool for entertainment.

Going forward, what would the area of focus be?

The focus area would be providing affordable communication to the rural communities. There will be multiple benefits from increased rural telecom connectivity. At one level, there will be a new burst of growth for the community. On a larger plane, however, there will be multiplier effects for the entire rural economy.