The Planning Commission has asked the Department of Telecommunications (DoT) to use the Universal Services Obligation Fund (USOF) to ramp up mobile phone coverage in the Maoists-affected areas of eastern, central and southern India to improve surveillance.
Their insurgency in these areas has kept private telecom operators from rolling out mobile phone services there as they often damage infrastructure, including mobile phone towers, to dodge authorities.
DoT is hence preparing a roadmap with defined timelines for financing the rollout of mobile networks in these sensitive pockets with USOF subsidy. At present, mobile phone companies contribute 5 per cent of their revenue to the USOF, which is pegged at around Rs 200 billion.
BSNL is most likely to be asked to establish the mobile phone network. But since the project will be USOF funded, BSNL may be asked to establish a sizeable OFC bandwidth pool so that it can be harnessed, on a shared basis, by private mobile phone companies later. However, rolling out mobile networks in around 45 Maoists-affected districts will be a tall order for BSNL or any other telecom operator.
Meanwhile, the department is also likely to seek a larger presence of security forces to ensure that BSNL is able to do the job.
