Himalayan News Service

New Delhi, July 27:

The Indian government proposes to announce a new national telecom policy to comprehensively cover a wide range of issues from spectrum allocation and research to equipment manufacture and services.

Shakeel Ahmed, minister of state for communications and information technology told the Lok Sabha that the government was currently in discussion with various stakeholders for preparing the new policy.

The other areas that will be covered by the policy include access charges, technology, deregulation, value-added services and quality. Ahmed said the government was also giving priority to rural telephony and has targeted enhancing the telecom density in such areas to four percent by 2010 — from 1.74 per cent at present.

He also said that work is on towards a uniform telecom tariff across the country. No time frame has, however, been fixed.