By IANS,
New Delhi : The New Telecom Policy, which is likely to have no roaming charges for subscribers within the country and allow for mobile numbers to be ported to any part of the country, is expected to be approved by June 2012.
“Policy is likely to be approved by the June 2012,” the Department of Telecom (DoT) said in a statement Friday.
The draft of the policy which also aims at exponentially increasing broadband availability and speed and accord the telecom industry the status of an infrastructure sector was released by Minister of Communications Kapil Sibal in October and was expected to be released by December earlier.
The statement also highlighted that the telecom sector has witnessed a commendable growth over the past two years with an overall subscriber base of 914.60 million and a teledensity of 76.03 percent adding that rural India is key now the key market.
“With the urban teledensity reaching 166.54 percent, the market has been showing signs of maturity. Rural India is the key target market likely to drive the next round of growth, particularly for voice based services. It is envisaged that rural teledensity of 40 percent would be reached by end of 2014.”
The statement added that the teledensity in the country is steadily increasing from 18.22 percent as on March 31, 2007 to 70.89 percent as on March 31, 2011 and currently stands at 76.03 percent as on Oct 31, 2011.