Bharti to exit rural scheme early, holds infra cos responsible

NEW DELHI: Telecom major Bharti today said it has approached the government for exiting early from a subsidised rural telephony scheme because infrastructure firms are not able to provide the required towers on time.

"We have been facing issues in many areas where these passive infrastructure providers were not able to provide the required infrastructure on time...We have presented these difficulties to the USO Administrator and are seeking an exit option," Bharti Airtel said in a statement.

The operator said that given the delays, it had to build its own infrastructure.

"As on date, we are providing services through around 900 out of total 1,174 sites assigned to us. We are awaiting infrastructure support for the rest, out of which, we will like to exit from around 180 sites as we have already built/ arranged for infrastructure," it said.

Set up with the objective of providing access to basic telephony services to people in rural areas, the Universal Service Obligation Fund ( USOF) provides subsidy to operators and infrastructure providers to offer services in rural areas.

The government had invited bids in 2007 to create telecom infrastructure and provide services in villages, offering subsidy.

However, telcos opted to go there without taking subsidy, and even offered negative subsidy (instead they offered to pay to the government), either to block other service providers or because they over-estimated the potential in rural villages.

Currently, there is no provision for service providers to unilaterally exit from the agreement.

"If and when this (exit route) is granted, this will not affect the customers as operators will continue to provide service through the already established alternate options," Bharti Airtel said.