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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.

New Delhi, Jan 22: Delhi Chief Minister Arvind Kejriwal has assets worth Rs 3.4 crore, an increase of Rs 1.3 crore from 2015, according to his election affidavit.

Kejriwal's total assets were worth Rs 2.1 crore in 2015.

The cash and fixed deposits of Kejriwal's wife Sunita Kejriwal increased from Rs 15 lakh in 2015 to Rs 57 lakh in 2020.

A party functionary said Rs 32 lakh worth cash and fixed deposits have been received by Sunita Kejriwal as voluntary retirement benefits while the rest are savings.

The cash and fixed deposits of the chief minister increased from Rs 2.26 lakh in 2015 to Rs 9.65 lakh in 2020.

There was no change in the value of immovable assets of his wife while Kejriwal's immovable assets' worth increased from Rs 92 lakh to Rs 177 lakh.

The party functionaries said increase in Kejriwal's immovable assets' worth is due to the increased valuation of the same asset as in 2015.

Lucknow, Mar 3: Two days after wife of Kafeel Khan, who is booked under the National Security Act, alleged that her husband faced a threat to life in Mathura jail, where he is lodged for anti-CAA protests, the District Magistrate claimed that Khan was 'fully secure' in the jail.

"Kafeel Khan, who has been booked under the National Security Act (NSA) for alleged inflammatory statements during an anti-CAA protest in Aligarh, is absolutely fine and fully secure in Mathura jail. Allegations of 'inhuman' treatment being meted out to him are baseless," Mathura District Magistrate Sarvagya Ram Mishra said on Monday.

Also Read: Kafeel Khan’s wife fears threat to his life
Senior Superintendent of Mathura district prison, Shailendra Maitrey, said that Khan's condition is being monitored every half an hour and the report is written in the gate book. He said, his ECG is normal and blood pressure was also in control.

He said that Khan was demanding checkup from a cardiologist.

"Since no specialist is available in the government sector here, his request could not be complied with. However, the jail authorities have sent his request to chief medical officer and have asked him to make a specialist available," the jail official said.

He said Khan is in barrack, which is fully ventilated, and he shares it with 50-60 'good behaviour' prisoners.

It may be recalled that in a letter to the Chief Justice of Allahabad High Court, Additional Chief Secretary (Home), and Director General (Jail), Shabista Khan, wife of the jailed doctor, had alleged that her husband was being treated inhumanely in the jail.

She feared that an attempt could be made on her husband's life inside the jail. She had demanded adequate security for him and had urged that her husband should be kept away from active criminals lodged in the jail.

Khan was booked by Aligarh police on December 13 for delivering a provocative speech in Aligarh Muslim University (AMU) during an anti-CAA protest in the campus, a day earlier, and was arrested from Mumbai airport on January 29 by Uttar Pradesh special task force.

The Aligarh police had slapped the stringent National Security Act (NSA) against Khan on February 13 night, hours before he was expected to walk free from the Mathura jail, after he was granted bail by Aligarh's chief judicial magistrate on February 10.