Only 2.6pc of RTDF utilised so far
KATHMANDU:
The government has spent only 2.6 per cent of the money accumulated in Rural Telecommunications Development Fund (RTDF) in the last 17 years. This shows that a huge amount of resources has remained idle in the fund, which was supposed to be utilised for extending telecom services to rural areas.
As of March-end, Nepal Telec-ommunications Authority (NTA) collected a total of Rs 10.22 billion for RTDF from income of its licensees till last fiscal. Each licensee of NTA contributes two per cent of their annual income from services in RTDF that was established as per a provision in Telecommunications Act 1997.
The Act says the fund has to be used for making telecom services available in ‘rural areas’. So far, Rs 265.69 million has been paid to Nepal Telecom (NT) and Rs 2.95 million to Subisu Cable Net from the fund for their involvement in service expansion to rural and remote areas.
“NT was provided the sum from the RTDF based on a Cabinet decision,” said Director of NTA Ananda Raj Khanal, addressing a panel discussion organised as a part of the workshop ‘How to engage in broadband policy and regulatory process’ on Tuesday. He said that NT had expanded telecom services at the village development committee level under a five-year campaign launched in 2059 BS (2002-03).
Subisu Cable Net had established community service centre in five village development committees (VDCs) of Lamjung district through competitive bidding and was paid for it from the fund. NTA officials said RTDF resources could not be utilised effectively based on the mandate of the Act, which resulted in confusion over fund disbursement mechanism for a long time and bureaucratic hurdles.
About five years ago, the telecom regulator had planned to use the fund’s resources for an optical fibre project aiming to connect all district headquarters with optical fibre cable. However, the project has not been implemented so far. NTA has also been planning to use the resource of RTDF to carry out a project called ‘connect a school, connect a community’ that has a target to take broadband connection to community and school level.
A senior official at NTA said they were preparing to hire an international consultant to determine the mechanism for using RTDF. In this regard, NTA has already invited expression of interest (EoI). The consultant will recommend NTA the plans and business model related to optic fibre expansion, mobile tower installation and taking broadband connectivity to rural areas.
Lack of clear definition of ‘rural’, among other factors, has also affected the use of RTDF. Normally, VDCs are considered as rural areas. Participants in the workshop said that with the government recently adding municipalities, the number of VDCs has come down. However, the government should check if the areas that have been listed as municipality really have telecom service connectivity.The workshop was jointly organised by LIRNEasia and Internet Society Nepal, and supported by Ford Foundation.
Contribution
Year Amount
2013-14 Rs 1.52bn
2012-13 Rs 1.33bn
2011-12 Rs 920.16m
2010-11 Rs 698.35m
2009-10 Rs 552.76m
Source: THT
