Government policy led to opening of sector for private players: Trai's Sharma

NEW DELHI: The Telecom Regulatory Authority of India (Trai) chairman Ram Sewak Sharma Friday said that the government's first national telecom policy helped the sector to open for private sector players participation in the country.

"The National Telecom Policy announced by the government in 1994 sought to change the position by allowing participation of private entities," Sharma said and added that the move had led to the opening of basic telecom services in addition to value-added services such as cellular services and radio paging through private participation.

Sharma, speaking on the occasion of 25 years of first telephonic call in India, also said that industry efforts led to take India's teledensity surge to 86.66% with a subscriber base to 1196 million in 2020.


In a first telephone call, Union telecom minister Sukhram and West Bengal chief minister Jyoti Basu spoken to each using handheld mobile device on July 31, 1995.

Sharma said that during the early days, there were 8 million telephone lines and a waiting list of about 2.5 million.

"Only 40,000 out 600,000 villages in the country were covered by telephone services and there were public call offices in urban areas," the top official added.
India currently has more 5.5 lakh villages connected digitally.