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NTA Celebrates 19th Anniversary

​Mandatory to Invest 15 % in Rural Areas

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NTA Celebrates 19th Anniversary
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March  5: The Nepal Telecommunications Authority (NTA) has made it mandatory for all telecommunication service providers to invest 15 percent of their total investment in the expansion of infrastructure in rural areas.

Speaking on the occasion of the 19th anniversary of NTA on March 3, Digambar Jha, Chairman of NTA said the amount should be spent in the sectors directed by the Authority.

There is a provision in law that service providers should invest certain amount of their expenditure in the development, expansion and operation of telecommunication in rural areas.

However, Jha complained that the service providers had not complied with the rules. He said that telephone service has reached to 94 percent of population and 65 percent of geographical territory of the country. According to him, works have already moved ahead by using rural telecommunications development fund (RTDF) for infrastructural development in the remaining areas.

“We are installing optical fiber to connect all districts, headquarters and municipalities,” he informed. “Besides that, we  are also starting programme to reach broadband to every Village Development Committee (VDC), educational institutions and health posts,” he added.

Similarly, Mahendra Man Gurung, Secretary at the Ministry of Information and Communications (MoIC) said that the ministry was always ready for the policy level reform in the telecommunications sector.  “It is important to make laws as per the policies,” he added.

Secretary Gurung stressed that besides capability, there should be dynamism in the Authority and the ministry was ready to cooperate in reform of NTA as early as it wants.

Also, Gurung focused on investing in increasing efficiency and capacity of staffs and accused the NTA of not taking leadership in terms of adopting new technology. Due to this, service providers are not being able to operate the services even if they have the capacity for this.  

Likewise, Ananda Raj Khanal, Senior Director of NTA said that the time for implementation of commitment had come.  

He also informed that of the total six service providers, the performance of other service providers other than Nepal Telecom and Ncell, was weak, as they could not make profit and were not in a position to withdraw the investment either.

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