USO

New Telecom Policy-1999 ushered in a new Era in Telecom Sector in India by re-orienting the countours of rural Telecom development which hitherto was restricted either to provision of Long distance Public Telephones (LDPTs), Gram Panchayat telephones (GPTs) or Village Public telephones (VPTs) by Government or providing a compensatory tariff structure for the rural Telecom subscribers. The primary concern of the Government to make available telecom facilities to the rural & remote areas at an affordable price by providing at least a public telephone facility in each revenue village had encountered sea-changes with the entry of new sevice providers and introduction of new technologies in the Sector. The basic thrust on rural telecom development shifted from maintaining an obligatory service by Government in each revenue village as “service provider” to creating a sustainable rural telecom market with enchanced rural teledensity thereby changing the role of Government as “facilitator of development”. The most remarkable ingredient of the multifocal NTP-99 was an “universal service support policy” and provision for an institutional arrangement for ensuring uniform development of telecom network in the rural & remote areas of the country through subsidy support to the telecom service providers, financial resources for which is being arranged from the license fee collected from all the telecom service providers. The Indian Telegraph Act 1885 was thus amended in 2003 alongwith the Indian Telephone rules 1951. The modified Indian telegraph Act i.e. Indian Telegraph (Amendment) Act-2003 and the Indian telegraph (Amendment) Rules 2004 prescribed the basic frame work and defined the structural manifestation of Universal Service Obligation Fund (Rule-523 & 524), the scope of support to be provided from Universal Service Obligation fund (Rule-525) and the criteria for selection of Universal Service Provider (Rule-526). Initially, it was decided to extend financial support from USOF to the Universal Service Providers to compensate the Net cost of providing telecom services in the following streams:-

1.  Stream-I-Provision of Public Access facilities
2.  Stream-II-Provision of Individual Access facilities In accordance with the recommendations of Telecom Regulatory Authority of India, several schemes were designed under the two streams and implementation of the schemes were opened to all Telecom Service Providers justifying the multi-operator regime. The telecom service providers who had been selected through multi-layered biddings to provide telecom services in the rural & remote areas were christened as Universal Service Providers (USPs) and were authorized to receive subsidy support for implementing the devised USO schemes for developing a sustainable rural telecom market. The following agreements were signed by USOFA with different Telecom Service providers under the subsidy scheme in Chhattisgarh:-

1. Agreement No.30-101/2002-USF dated 28.03.2003 with M/s. BSNL for operation & Maintenance of VPTs (OPEX)
2. Agreement No.30-107/2002-USF dated 25.09.2003 with M/s. BSNL for replacement of MARR VPTs from 01.07.2003 onwards (MARR-A)
3. Agreement No.30-107/2002-USF dated 19.03.2004 for replacement of MARR VPTs INSTALLED UPTO 30.06.2003 WITH M/s BSNL (MARR-B)
4. Agreement No.30-133/2004-USF dated 30.09.2004 for installation of RCPs with with M/s. BSNL (RCP)
5. Agreement No.30-130/2004-USF dated 10.11.2004 for provision of VPTs in Revenue villages as per 1991 Census with with M/s. BSNL (VPT-I)
6. Agreement No.30-140/2004-USF dated 15.03.2005 with M/s. BSNL for provision of Rural household DELs in specified SDCAs during the period 01.04.2005 to 31.03.2007 which were further extended thrice till the completion of validity period of the agreement i.e. upto 31.03.2010 (RHDEL-A) & (RHDEL-X)
7. Agreement No.30-145/2004-USF dated 03.05.2005 with M/s. BSNL for provision & maintenance of Rural household DELs from 01.04.2002 TO 31.03.2005 with a validity period of 8 years with M/s BSNL (RHDEL-B)
8. Agreement No.30-145/2004-USF dated 26.08.2005 for provision & maintenance of Rural household DELs in specified SDCAs of the state with Reliance Telecom (RHDEL-B)
9. Agreement No.30-148/2007-USF (Part-A) dated 14.05.2007 with M/s. BSNL for provision of mobile infrastructure sites (IP)
10. Agreement No.30-143/2007-USF (Part-A) dated 15.05.2007 with M/s. NITL (n