New Delhi, Jan 31: Substantial competition and low tariff rates by telecom operators since 2016 have led to a financial stress in the sector, the Economic Survey said on Friday.
The data price in the country came down by over 99 per cent during 2016-2019, making it among the lowest tariff in the world, according to the survey.
"Since 2016, the sector has witnessed substantial competition and price cutting by the telecom service providers (TSPs), creating financial stress in the sector. As a result, the sector is experiencing consolidation. While some operators have filed for bankruptcy, others have merged, in their quest to improve viability," the survey report said.
In April-June 2019, the price of data was Rs 7.7 per gigabyte (GB) as compared to Rs 200 per GB in June 2016, it added.
"The Average Revenue Per User (ARPU) for GSM based mobile services has also gone down substantially from Rs 126 in June 2016 to Rs 74.30 in June 2019," the survey said.
The tariff war started in the market with entry of new telecom operator Reliance Jio in September 2016.
"BSNL and MTNL are also affected by the tariff war that has impacted their cash flow resulting in mounting losses," the survey said.
The financial health of the public sector telecom firms plummeted to a level where they have been finding hard to pay employees salaries in time.
The government has drawn up a plan to revive these PSUs which is still in works.
The revival plan consists of several measures, including reduction of staff cost through voluntary retirement scheme, allotment of spectrum for 4G services, monetisation of land and building, tower and fibre assets of BSNL and MTNL, debt restructuring through sovereign guarantee bonds and ''in-principle'' approval for merger of BSNL and MTNL.
The survey said that the wireless telephony now constitutes 98.27 per cent of all subscriptions whereas share of landline telephones now stands at only 1.73 per cent where market share is dominated by private sector players.
"The overall tele-density in India stands at 90.45 per cent, the rural tele-density being 57.35 per cent and urban teledensity being 160.71 per cent at the end of September 2019. The private sector dominates with a share of 88.81 per cent (106.06 crore connections) at the end of September, 2019 while the share of public sector was 11.19 per cent (13.36 crore connections)," the survey said.
The lower price of data has also lead in surge of broadband connections and average consumption of the internet.
Total broadband connections increased by about ten times, from 6.1 crore in 2014 to 59.46 crore in June 2019, the survey said.
The number of internet subscribers (both broadband and narrowband put together) stood at 66.53 crore at the end of June 2019 as compared to 25.16 crore in 2014.
The number of mobile internet subscribers was 64.36 lakh at the end of June 2019 while the number of wireline internet subscribers was 2.17 crore.
"India is now the global leader in monthly data consumption, with average consumption per subscriber per month increasing 157 times from 62 MB in 2014 to 9.8 GB in June 2019. The cost of data has also reduced substantially, enabling affordable internet access for millions of citizens," the survey said.
Comments
Who is RAMA ?
Answer : he the king of ayodhya.
is he human being
Answer : yes.
how come an human being can become GOD.
my dear hindu brother, please understant the concept of GOD,
rama cannot save sita from kidnapping then how he will save you??
rama need army to capture ravana then how he will become GOD.
Rama born and died, so you think GOD also born & die.
if there is so many gods then there is no justic...same as indian political party one want to pull the leg of other to get power..
Who is GOD ?
The Most Concise Definition of God:
The most concise definition of God in Islam is given in the four verses of Surah Ikhlas which is Chapter 112 of the Qur’an:
"Say: He is Allah,
The One and Only.
"Allah, the Eternal, Absolute.
"He begets not, nor is He begotten.
And there is none like unto Him."
What does Islam say about ‘god-men’?
India is often called the land of ‘god-men’. This is due to the abundance of so-called spiritual masters in India. Many of these ‘babas’ and ‘saints’ have a large following in many countries. Islam abhors deification of any human being. To understand the Islamic stand towards such pretenders to divinity, let us analyze one such ‘god-man’, Osho Rajneesh or RAMA.
Let us put this candidate, ‘Bhagwan’ Rajneesh, to the test of Surah Ikhlas, the touchstone of theology:
i) The first criterion is "Say, He is Allah, one and only". Is Rajneesh one and only? No! Rajneesh was one among the multitude of ‘spiritual teachers’ produced by India. Some disciples of Rajneesh might still hold that Rajneesh is one and only.
ii) The second criterion is, ‘Allah is absolute and eternal’. We know from Rajneesh’s biography that he was suffering from diabetes, asthma, and chronic backache. He alleged that the U.S. Government gave him slow poison in prison. Imagine Almighty God being poisoned! Rajneesh was thus, neither absolute nor eternal.
iii) The third criterion is ‘He begets not, nor is He begotten’. We know that Rajneesh was born in Jabalpur in India and had a mother as well as a father who later became his disciples.
God does not become a human being:
God does not take human form:
Some may argue that God does not become a human being but only takes a human form. If God only takes a human form but does not become a human being, He should not possess any human qualities. We know that all the ‘God-men’, have human qualities and failings. They have all the human needs such as the need to eat, sleep, etc.
The worship of God in human form is therefore a logical fallacy and should be abhorred in all its forms and manifestations.
That is the reason why the Qur’an speaks against all forms of anthropomorphism. The Glorious Qur’an says in the following verse:
"There is nothing whatever like unto Him."
GOD is beautiful, GOD is Merciful, GOD is Loving his creation based on his good deeds.
GOD want human being to live in this earth happly and cooperate each other in bad time.
one important thing GOD want that he want him to worship alone. he is supreme
dont add idol, photo, animal, stone, humans, sun, star etc.
all belong to HIM.
hope you will find the truth before you die!!!
Dear Advocate Sir,
Saying is not enough sir, All courts need concrete evedence to prove and to discharge the verdict.
Please provide the concrete evidence to get the verdict in favor.
We ask advocate Vaidyanathan to respect his post and constitution by not giving incorrect statement. We ask him the base he say that babri masjid was constructed by razing temple. Where is the proof. He is throwing ball in darkness. He is betraying his oath taken while receiving lawyer certificate that he will say truth only. Dear Vaidyanathan, please dont misguide the court and show the evidence. How about the home you are staying. What will be your response if I say that it was constructed demolishing church or gurudwara or masjid.
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