Statement
by
Mr. Shyamal Ghosh
Secretary, Department of Telecommmunications
 & Chairman, Telecom Commission 
Republic of India

Monday,18 March 2002

The issue of Digital Divide is of critical importance for developing countries. In this context the most important factor is that of providing Universal Access. In India, one of the important objectives of the New Telecom Policy enunciated in 1999 is of providing connectivity to all the 607,000 villages in the country by installing a Public Telephone in each village by the year 2002. It is also intended to raise rural teledensity from less than 1% at present to 4% during the current decade.

The APT Asia-Pacific Summit on the Information Society held in October/November 2000 led to the "Tokyo Declaration". This Summit was unique in the sense that APT represented a diverse group of countries, covering a wide spectrum from developed to developing and least developed countries. One important component of the Declaration was the issue of bridging Digital Divide. The Summit recognized that there was Digital Divide between and within nations; the Divide separated those with easy access and those without; and that the Digital Divide was caused by differences of income, education, age, gender, urban and rural divide, industrial and agricultural sector Divide. The Summit therefore included in the Declaration the need to provide Universal Access and in this connection noted the option of setting up of Multi-Purpose Community Centres at Post

Offices and schools. The Summit recognizes the need for Regional and Global Cooperation, and also agreed that every effort will be made to provide access to Internet to all in the APT region by 2005. For this purpose, it was essential to reduce costs of terminal equipment and encourage application of Distance Education and Telemedicine as also to develop local language based content.

As a follow up of the Tokyo Declaration, APT convened a Conference on Digital Divide at New Delhi this year. The members participating in this conference noted the changing environment in the Telecom Sector leading to De-regulation, private sector participation, competition and reduction in costs and tariff. It was also noted that reduction in tariff was taking place also on account of change in technology, new applications and services. The conference felt the need to benchmark Digital Divide and set goals for providing Universal Access. For the world to truly become a Global Village with Universal Connectivity it was necessary to develop appropriate low cost ICT equipments with Broadband access. It was necessary to have workable universal funding with new sources for such funding from those who stand to reap the benefits. There is need for creating awareness and confidence in ICT among the new users. The possibility of replicating successful access models, like the Grameen telephone model of Bangladesh was recognized. This model provided access to multiple rural users through mobile handsets moving from household to household. Key ICT applications in rural areas would be for overcoming barriers of literacy and language.

There is conflict between affordability and cost of universal access; investment in the telecom sector in rural areas may not yield reasonable returns and if higher rural network costs are translated into higher tariffs, then it adversely affects affordability and consequently penetration. Further, with de-regulation, developing countries cannot resort to the classical method of cross-subsidisation for providing affordable rural access. Universal obligation funds are either not adequate or would need higher contributions from the service providers thereby adversely affecting cost of providing such services. Therefore the option of providing "public access" as distinguished from "Household Access" in rural areas in the first instance to demonstrate viability. For this purpose there is need for cooperation between Public and Private Sector initiatives.

The various facets of the issue of Digital Divide are, therefore, well recognized. What is needed now is to frame a Time-Bound Action Plan for addressing these recognized facets of Digital Divide. Both developed and developing countries should recognize that providing Universal Access is a win-win situation for both since such access would imply more traffic and more revenue. Therefore the need for Global Cooperation through ITU developing appropriate projects like Multi-Purpose Community Information Centres, for encouraging Research and Development for developing relevant and appropriate technologies; for developing appropriate Projects and Models for developing countries and to set up a data base for exchange of information and experience.