BHOPAL, NOV 6: The Union Minister for communication, Ram Vilas Paswan today said it would be his endeavour to connect all villages in the country with telephones by April 1, 2002.Commissioning AIRTEL's village public telephone service he made a call to Gyan Singh Meena of Hamiri illage in the neighbouring Raisen district.The Madhya Pradesh Chief Minister, Digvijay Singh also made a call to Vijay Narayan Shrivastava in Bandori village of the same district to mark the launching of the village telephone service.Speaking to the Union Minister said that all private operators had not fufilled the targets of providing phones in villages in at least six states. It was only in some southern states that all the villages were connected by phones, he added.He said it was his experience that 90 per cent of the telephones installed in villages were not working and added that this could be due to a large number of factors.Paswan lamented that the number of telephones in the country was much less than what it should ideally be.He said that right now only three out of 100 persons had telephones in the country as against 60 to 70 for every 100 person in USA and England.Paswan said that after taking over as Communications Minister, he had initiated a number of steps to improve the functioning of telephones and added that he was in favour of giving equal facilities to Videsh Sanchar Nigam Limited (VSNL) and private operators.He said that by the year 2005, he wanted that seven out of 100 persons should have telephone connections and added that this number should go up to 15 by the year 2010.The Minister said that in rural areas the percentage of telephones was only 0.6 and added that 90 per cent of them were always out of order.A huge sum that was beyond the means of the government was neded to provide telephones across the country, he said and added that in view of this the telecom sector had been opened to the private sector.
