India’s Department of Telecom has projected an investment of around $149 billion in the beleaguered sector plagued by various scams.
RCR Wireless News has in the past reported that a planning commission working group on the telecommunication sector for the 12th Five Year Plan (2012-2017) had stated that a total investment of approximately $149 billion (both from private players and government) would be required during the plan period.
A background note prepared by the Department of Telecom for the Economic Editors conference states that the telecom ministry has made a provision of adding 1.2 billion new telephone connections by 2017.
The note, while referring to the draft National Telecom Policy – 2011 (NTP-2011), states its objective of providing affordable and reliable broadband on demand by the year 2015 and to achieve 175 million broadband connections by 2017 and 600 million by the year 2020 at minimum download speed of 2 megabits per second and making available higher speeds of at least 100 Mbps on demand.
It also mentions that one of the missions of the NTP-2011 is to provide high speed and high quality broadband access to all village panchayats through optical fiber by 2014.
While speaking at the Economic Editors conference, minister of Communications and Information Technology Kapil Sibal said, “The key objectives of NTP 2011 is to achieve full mobile number portability, one nation-free roaming, 100% rural tele-density by 2020, 600 million broadband connections by 2020, on demand broadband of at-least 100 Mbps, One license across services and service areas, right to broadband and to reposition mobile phonse as an instrument of empowerment.”
