In a bid to promote rural telephony, DoT has decided to do away with the licence fee on rural landline services.

In a bid to promote rural telephony, DoT has decided to do away with the licence fee on rural landline services. The decision is intended to give a boost to e-governance through the provision of more broadband services in villages, thus reducing the digital divide. The government is likely to lose about Rs 2 billion in revenue per year by eliminating this licence fee. The Telecom Commission, which has cleared DoT’s proposal, has also decided to reduce the levy towards the USO Fund from the present 5 per cent to 3 per cent of the adjusted gross revenue in the case of those telecom service providers who have already covered more than 95 per cent of rural areas.