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While the teledensity in India has for the first time touched the figure of five per 100 people, there still remains a wide gap between the urban and the rural areas. According to the figures released by the Government of India, as on March 31, 2003 the overall teledensity in urban India has significantly moved up—from 10.37 in 2001 to 15.16. However, the rural areas still have a long way to go and despite the government"s so called thrust for "phone in every village" and threats to all basic operators to fulfill their VPT obligations, there has only been a marginal increase in rural teledensity—from 0.90 till March 31, 2001 to 1.49 by the end of fiscal 2002-03.

Delhi leads the teledensity chart with a total of 26.85 by the end of this period, followed by 11.60 in Punjab and 11.13 in Kerala. The urban and rural teledensity in these states stood at 30.18 (urban) in Delhi whereas in Punjab it was 25.66 in urban areas and 4.60 in rural areas. In Kerala, it was 23.70 and 7.85 both in urban and rural areas respectively. Other states, which are leading in total teledensity, are Andaman & Nicobar (9.60), Maharashtra (8.99), Himachal Pradesh (8.40), Tamil Nadu (7.82), Gujarat (7.44), Karnataka (6.45), Haryana (6.06) and Andhra Pradesh (5.56).

States which have less than five as their teledensity are Uttaranchal (3.95), West Bengal (3.72), Rajasthan (3.40), Madhya Pradesh (2.88), North East (2.70), Orissa (2.22) and Uttar Pradesh (2.13). Among other states, Assam has teledensity of 1.94, Jharkhand 1.57, Chhatisgarh has 1.39 and Bihar 1.32. The New Telecom Policy (NTP ’99) had laid special emphasis on providing telecommunication services to rural areas and providing reliable media to all exchanges. The targets set were to make available telephone on demand by 2002 and to achieve teledensity of seven by 2005 and 15 by 2010. 

(CNS)