Annexure-I

Q.1.

How many villages are to be provided with Village Public Telephone (VPT) facility under Bharat Nirman programme? 66822 no. of uncovered villages as per Census 1991 in the country excluding those villages having population less than 100, those lying in deep forests and those affected with insurgency are to be provided VPT facility under Bharat Nirman programme.

Q.2.

Who is the implementing agency for this scheme? M/s Bharat Sanchar Nigam Limited, a Government of India Undertaking, is providing VPTs in uncovered villages being a successful bidder as an outcome of the tendering process. Agreements were signed with M/s BSNL in November 2004 to provide subsidy support for provision of VPTs in such 66822 villages.

Q.3.

On what technologies these VPTs are being provided? Out of 66822 VPTs, 14183 remotely located villages are to be provided VPTs through Digital Satellite Phone Terminals (DSPTs) whereas the remaining VPTs are to be provided on other technologies including landline, wireless in local loop (WLL), GSM etc.

Q.4.

What are the achievements under the scheme as on date? As on 31.03.2008, 54157 VPTs have been provided by BSNL.

Q.5.

What is the state-wise distribution and achievement of these VPTs? State-wise distribution and achievement of these VPTs is given below: No. of villages to be provided VPTs under Bharat Nirman 0 1074 8931 0 1694 4144 0 1002 1755 0 0 11894 5043 6441 2128

Sl. No. 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 12 13 14 15

Name of the Service Area Andaman & Nicobar Andhra Pradesh Assam Bihar Jharkhand Gujarat Haryana Himachal Pradesh Jammu & Kashmir Karnataka Kerala Madhya Pradesh Chhattisgarh Maharasthra North East-I

VPTs provided 0 665 8654 0 1450 4044 0 870 1343 0 0 11803 3325 5923 440

Balance 0 409 277 0 244 100 0 132 412 0 0 91 1718 518 1688

15A 15B 15C 16 16A 16B 16C 17 18 19 20 21 22 23 24

Meghalaya (NE-I) Mizoram (NE-I) Tripura (NE-I) North East-II Arunachal Pradesh (NE-II) Manipur (NE-II) Nagaland (NE-II) Orissa Punjab Rajasthan Tamil Nadu Uttar Pradesh (East) Uttar Pradesh (West) Uttaranchal West Bengal Total

1957 96 75 1550 646 876 28 4899 0 12386 0 0 0 3881 0 66822

311 60 69 735 239 477 19 1552 0 11192 0 0 0 2161 0 54157

1646 36 6 815 407 399 9 3347 0 1194 0 0 0 1720 0 12665

Q.6.

Are there any bottlenecks in provisioning of VPTs? If so, details thereof. The allocation of transponders required for the operation of DSPTs was initially made from INSAT 4C. After the failure of INSAT-4C, the allocation of the transponders from ISRO was delayed. This resulted in delay in provisioning of VPTs on DSPTs. The required transponders were allocated to BSNL by the end of August 2007. BSNL has also been reporting some delay in procurement of equipment by the contractor.

Q.7.

Can some of the VPTs earlier planned to be provided on DSPTs be provided using other technologies? As BSNL has already rolled out services through their CDMA and mobile networks, some of the VPTs earlier proposed to be provided using DSPTs have been provided on wireless technology. Now about 6000 VPTs are likely to be provided on DSPTs out of the remaining VPTs.

Q.8.

When are the VPTs likely to be provided? The remaining VPTs, including the VPTs to be provided using DSPTs, are likely to be provided in a phased manner by December 2008.

Q.9.

How much amount has been disbursed so far on this activity? An amount of Rs. 130 Crore has been disbursed as subsidy support under this scheme as on 31.03.2008.

Q.10. Where are these VPTs being installed in the villages? These VPTs are installed in grocery shop or commercial centres in the villages by Service Providers in consultation with the concerned Gram Panchayat.