Kathmandu, February 5 Minister for Information and Communications Mohan Bahadur Basnet today directed state-owned telecom company — Nepal Telecom (NT) — to make its services more consumer-centric and competitive. Addressing the 14th anniversary of NT here today, Minister Basnet said that the company should equally prioritise financial sustainability and quality service to protect and enhance NT’s legacy. “NT is one of the oldest government-owned firms in the country and has historical importance as well. Thus, the company should not comprise on consumer issues, but rather focus on making its services more consumer-friendly, which will ultimately promote NT’s legacy,” said Basnet. Meanwhile, Minister Basnet also directed NT to expand its fibre networks and 4G services across the country as soon as possible. Currently, 4G service of NT is limited to Kathmandu Valley and Pokhara only. Speaking on the occasion, Tapta Bahadur Bista, state minister for information and communications, praised NT for making its telecom services comparatively cheaper and urged the telecom’s officials to increase people’s access to telecom services in the coming days. Acting Secretary at Ministry of Information and Communications, Prem Kumar Shrestha said the government will facilitate NT by gradually amending hurdles in laws that NT is currently facing while making decisions on different issues, including procurements. Kamini Raj bhandari, managing director of NT, said the company will expand its services in rural parts of the country using various technologies to increase people’s access to NT’s services and boost its market share. Informing that NT has been achieving notable growth in both voice and data consumption in the past few years, Rajbhandari committed to expand both of these services nationwide. “However, NT will prioritise expansion of data services considering rapid growth in demand of internet in Nepal.” Rajbhandari also vowed to expand 4G services nationwide soon and enhance internet using experience for NT’s customers. Currently, more than 500,000 pre-paid and post-paid NT consumers have been consuming the 4G service, according to her. Amid the anniversary ceremony, NT also launched its airtime credit service — Namaste Credit. Minister Basnet launched the service, which enables NT customers to take balance credit in case of emergency. Under this service, phone call of NT’s customer will not be dropped even if subscriber’s balance is finished during phone conversation. But, NT will deduct such credit from the main balance upon the next recharge.