Hunger for information- the other side of food security

“So much information can reach villages through broadband, which cannot reach there through any other media. And the villages, which have no roads and other forms of communication, have a huge hunger for information...”, says Pradip Baijal in an interview to Manish Kumar of OneWorld South Asia. Pradip Baijal TRAI’s initiatives brought about a mobile telephony revolution in India. You must be very satisfied with the way the sector is growing. We, at TRAI, started mobile telephony in the year 1995-96 with no prior connections. By March 2003, we had achieved 13 million mobile telephone connections. In 2003-04, the steps that TRAI took led to a tremendous growth in the number of mobile telephone connections. Within a year, the number of connections increased from 13 million to 33.6 million. If you consider the average growth of mobile telephony during the last eight years, one year stands out when we had a growth, which was 12.70 times more than the average. This increase of 20 million connections in one year has given us the confidence to work towards achieving 100 million new users in next two years. I am personally very satisfied. What is next on TRAI’s agenda?. We think that if we could have such great success in mobile telephony, we will also be successful in achieving broadband connectivity. Further, broadband can be a very useful medium for society at large and is a more powerful instrument of change. So next on our agenda is broadband. What are the advantages of broadband?. Internet and broadband will have far reaching effects on development, growth and governance in the country much more than the reforms in telephony had. Broadly, we can point out the following impacts: Economic At least 1.8 million people will be directly employed, with 62 million new jobs by 2020 A 11 per cent increase in labour productivity A larger skilled labour pool to meet the rising demand Growth of this sector will boost India’s competitiveness in the global market Social benefits Increased reach of quality education and health care in rural areas Enhanced quality of living through better access to communication Improved delivery mechanisms Reducing the cost of government initiatives to deliver citizens services Allowing for citizens’ direct interaction with the government Transparency, efficiency, accountability in the execution of services, and other government actions What are the major broadband recommendations that TRAI has sent to the Government? Our current tariff for a 100kbps connection is $15. In South Korea this tariff is one-fourth of a dollar. The per capita income in South Korea, in turn, is 20 times higher than India. So, if our tariffs are that high, the broadband market is practically non-existent here. Like in mobile telephony, when our tariffs were $ 0. 30 at both ends, there was no market. The market came into being only when the tariffs were reduced to less than two cents the new rates being almost 15 times lower. So broadband connectivity also requires lower tariffs, say, about one dollar. But how do we bring down the rates? For this, we must reduce the lease line charges, international connectivity charges, etc. Our main recommendation is to bring down the tariffs. Unless the government reduces the tax on broadband equipment, the revenue share for the spectrum service tax on the supply of broadband, etc., the tariffs will not be competitively priced for the Indian market. We should also ensure that there is more content on local broadband and that everything does not go to the U.S. Currently, everything goes to the U.S. including our e-mail. So we have to take a number of steps to be able to reduce the broadband tariff. Then how do Internet Service Providers (ISPs) offer broadband? Either ISPs go to every house or use the last mile of the incumbent. The incumbent says, “ We will not allow you to use the last mile. It is ours”. There are 42 million last miles, while the incumbent uses only 100,000 last miles. So as the regulator, are we going to leave the 42 million last miles for the incumbent to use? Say, that will take about a 100 years when are we going to intervene? A leased line comes from Mumbai to Delhi. However, when it goes to the landing station in Okhla (in Delhi), then the last mile to the ISP site is only with the incumbent. So do we say, “ You also put the last mile”, or, do we ensure that the last mile is utilised under a regulated tariff? The last mile is a monopoly issue, and the question is whether this monopoly should be broken. Also, when we go to the villages, with broadband, should we not allow a telephone connection? I think we must. Under the present policy framework, we cannot allow automatic telephone connections with broadband connectivity. We must change this rule. TRAI has already issued a consultation paper on the unified license issue. We believe that one cannot achieve anything unless a comprehensive and integrated view is taken. Indians, in general, have proved their competence in understanding and contributing to IT led changes. That is why we have BPO and other IT enabled services. We have a large number of computers and television connections. Indian children, even in villages, can become computer literate. So broadband must be pushed down to the villages. So much information can reach villages through broadband, which cannot reach there through any other media. And the villages, which have no roads and other forms of communication, have a huge hunger for information like what the crop prices, mandi prices, etc. are. Broadband can be very helpful in this sector. However, there cannot be broadband connectivity unless we reduce the last mile of copper. Hence it is necessary to unbundle. There cannot be broadband connectivity to the villages unless we use 30,000 of the existing 35,000 telephone exchanges, which are luckily connected with fibre. We must leverage this fibre for supplying broadband to villages. Again the fibre belongs to the incumbent. So we need to regulate the use of that fibre. TRAI’s recommendations focus on the definition and the goals of broadband, providing access to the customer in the last mile, costs of backhaul networks, fiscal policies and the creation of content and applications. A National Alliance in India comprising civil society organisations, public and private institutions, academic and research organisations, recently announced its ambitious plan to make every village a knowledge centre by 2007. How easy it is when right policies are not in place? What the National Alliance has done is truly remarkable because it has decided that it must go to all the villages in the country. When you are in a knowledge based society, your people are highly intelligent and skilled and if there is a way of reaching the villages through a viable means of communication we must do it. Once we reach villages, we can have e-governance, e-health, e-business, etc. The villagers can send and receive e-mail, talk to their relatives overseas, take and download photographs, take classes, show their animals to veterinary doctor and themselves access health, governance and other services through videoconferencing. All this can be done the moment you are able to have a kiosk in the village. But the present policy framework does not support Mission 2007 of the National Alliance. At present, even for rural areas, the spectrum is very highly priced. Concessions required for village level information kiosks have not been given yet. If the policy does not support Mission 2007, how does one proceed? In effective governance, everything is achieved by putting up a case to the government. No one, so far, has brought this issue to the government. The National Alliance is doing a great job by putting this matter before the government and making the government aware of the relevance and importance of its mission. In the light of the objectives of Mission 2007, what plans does TRAI have to enable the convergence of technology for the last mile? TRAI is facilitating connectivity for the last mile. The National Alliance can take advantage of this facilitation. What are the challenges that you see in achieving Mission 2007? And how can TRAI help achieve the alliance’s objectives? The actual implementation of Mission 2007 is a very different and difficult job. The National Alliance alone cannot do that job. Mission 2007 can only be pushed when a favourable environment is created where local entrepreneurs are enabled to do that job. Mission 2007 is already considering this aspect. Yes. The local entrepreneurs/ local community must be part of this initiative. The National Alliance, the regulators, and the government needs to create a viable business case. This is to be done by ensuring low entry costs and fewer entry barriers. Already in the southern and western parts of India such kiosks have been set up. Viable models exist. They have, however, succeeded in some villages and failed in others. Why? Some projects are not as economically viable because they aren’t sustainable. If these kiosks address the concerns of the village community, they will be valuable so, while someone has to create more relevant local content, others have to facilitate the process. You mentioned that there is a hunger for information in the villages. Does it mean that broadband has some influence on rural livelihoods? A farmer can know the price of the products in the mandi from the kiosk and his profit margins can rise if he sells his products at the appropriate time. Through broadband, the farmer can transact more economically rather, the entire community can do business more economically. It is already happening in some of the kiosks in southern India. People, who are not familiar with TRAI’s work, often ask what connectivity has to do with food security and hunger. Let me give you an example. If the village ration shop does not have stocks, information on stocks can be provided on the website of the village kiosk by the district officials of the Food Corporation of India or the district collector. In South India, the villagers talk to the district collector through these kiosks. At a fixed time everyday, villagers talk to the collector, asking for remedies to their problems or for getting more information about actions needed to solve local problems. They can question the Collector on various issues including food security. In terms of TRAI’s role, when we talk about knowing the mandi prices of the farm products at the kiosk, the livelihood issue is very much there. The issue of food security and hunger is comparatively more serious for people living in remote isolated locations with adverse geographical terrains. VSAT is being used in such regions. But VSAT connectivity, like broadband, is not economical at present. How does TRAI propose to overcome such hurdles for improving efficiency in food distribution among the poor in far-off locations? Today we have 8 per cent coverage and in about 2-3 years time, this will go up to 20 per cent. What is more important is that from the present population coverage of 20 per cent through wireless towers, we will go to 75 per cent coverage. Perhaps, then, VSAT technology will not be required and we can have cheaper options everywhere. About Pradip Baijal: He is currently the Chairman of the Telecom Regulatory Authority of India(TRAI), a Statutory body constituted under an act of Parliament.

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