Policy Statement
by
The Hon. Mr. J. P. Gupta
Minister of Information and Communications 
Nepal

Tuesday,19 March 2002

Mr. Chairman,
Excellencies,
ITU Secretary General,
Distinguished delegates,
Ladies and Gentlemen.

It gives me special pleasure to be here today among the distinguished delegates from so many countries and speak on the diverse field of telecommunications development. Please allow me to thank the host country, Turkey. Coming from one of the least developed countries, Nepal, my delegation hopes that the conference will successfully address the telecommunication needs of the least developed countries (LDCs). I wish to speak on some of our endeveours to develop the telecommunication services and to bridge the Digital Divide.

To safeguard the constitutional guarantee ‘the right to know by the citizen, Nepal formulated and adopted the National Communications Policy in 1992. This policy recognizing the need to make available all kinds of information to the people, emphasizes the development and expansion of telecommunications services as a very essential service in order to foster it as an infrastructure of national development, and encourage the participation of private sector investment.

Realizing development of telecommunication services as an essential pre-requisite for Information, Communication Technologies (ICT), a separate Telecommunication Policy was formulated and adopted in 1999. The main objective of this policy is to develop and expand the telecommunications services in a fair competitive atmosphere with the involvement of private sector.

Being one of the least developed countries of the world, Nepal feels the need to make special efforts to rapidly develop such that the extensive application of ICT, will engender economic consolidation, development of democratic norms and values, proportional distribution of economic resources and enhancement of public awareness, thereby raising living standards and eventually contribute significantly to poverty alleviation. The information Technology Policy 2000, was formulated with objectives

• To make information technology accessible to the general public and increase employment through this means,

• To built a knowledge-based society, and

• To establish knowledge-based industries.

Here again, one of the strategies adopted being to rapidly develop and extend information technology in fair and competitive manner by encouragement of domestic and foreign investments.

Mr. Chairman,

In-spite of the consistent and continued efforts, both at the Policy and implementation level, the Digital Divide is widening. The country has

• Tele-density of 1.3 (i.e. Main telephone lines per 100 inhabitants),

• Cellular penetration of 0.02,

• PC penetration of about 50,000 computer sets, and

• Television penetration covering 44% of the country’s population and 35% of land areas.

The country is divided into 5 development Regions and 75 districts with each district divided into several municipalities, sub-municipalities and village development committees (VDCs). There are all together 3914 VDCs, out of which only 1761 are provided with telephones and only 268 of these VDCs have local telephone exchanges with capacity ranging from 150 to 500 lines each. Because of rugged mountainous topography, the choice of technology is based on radio (VHF/UHF/Microwave) powered by solar system, making it often very difficult to maintain, repair and provide continuity of the service.

Under the government and private initiatives, plans are underway to provide telecommunication service to remaining VDCs using mix of satellite and terrestrial based wireless technologies.

Mr. Chairman and distinguished delegates,

While we are facing the challenges of getting increased investment for developing and expanding information infrastructure in order to decrease the Digital Divide, we are at the same time faced dilemma of getting due returns from the already built-up telecommunication infrastructure due to the use of new and alternative technologies such as VOIPs which by passes the traditional bilateral commercial tariffs. The loss of revenue due to this coupled with the declining investment from private sectors, in-spite of various policies and other incentives provided to them, has slowed down the pace of telecommunications development causing further digital divide.

I hope the conference will recognize and lay the groundwork for technology neutral next generation networks, that could facilitate migration from PSTN to IP-based next generation networks, through appropriate changes in the regulations, licensing, creating an international bilateral commercial charging arrangements.

I hope, that the conference shall address various other digital divide issues such as infrastructure, education, language awareness prevailing between developed, developing and least developed countries and arrive at declaration, a strategic plan and an action plan to enable commensurate growth of the telecommunication infrastructure for growth of information technology.

The outcome of this conference will be as historic as the city of Istanbul, both graceful and with extra-ordinary natural beauty. I wish to thank once more to the host country, and the ITU.

Thank you.