Of the greater than ₹1.6 lakh crore collected by the central authorities as common entry levy below the Digital Bharat Nidhi (earlier referred to as the Common Service Obligation Fund) till March 31 this yr, solely 51.4%, or ₹83,726 crore, allotted by the finance ministry has been totally utilised till September 30 this yr, minister of state for communications Pemmasani Chandra Sekhar knowledgeable the Lok Sabha on Wednesday.
The minister disclosed the main points in a written response to a query raised by DMK MP Kanimozhi Karunanidhi.
Between April 1, 2002, (when the USOF was established however was given statutory standing in 2003) and March 31, 2024, the USOF amassed ₹1,62,871,64 crore. Underneath the unified licence circumstances, telcos pay 5% of their adjusted gross income as UAL. The USOF is then used to supply telecom companies in underserved, rural and distant elements of the nation.
Between April 1, 2021 and September 30, 2024, the federal government had disbursed a complete of ₹22,323.87 crore to completely different states and Union Territories, Pemmasani mentioned in a written response to BJP MP Haribhai Patel. At ₹8,791.17 crore, the utmost funds had been disbursed in FY2024 since April 1, 2021.
The USOF/DBN is used to finance tasks similar to BharatNet, 4G Saturation Challenge, provision of cell companies in uncovered areas of ‘Aspirational Districts’, provision of cell companies in areas hit by left wing extremism, provision of cell companies in Himalayan and Border areas, in Islands, in North Jap Areas, in Meghalaya, in Arunachal Pradesh and two districts of Assam.
In one other response to BJP MP Jagdambika Pal, Pemmasani additionally talked about that DBN/USOF was used to determine submarine Optical Fiber Cable (OFC) connectivity between Chennai and Andaman and Nicobar Islands, and between Kochi and Lakshadweep Islands.
Pemmasani, in response to a query by Congress MP Amar Singh, mentioned that the DBN administrator had authorised 132 proposals from “firms, start-ups, R&D and tutorial establishments centered on R&D in telecom merchandise and applied sciences” with a funding of ₹552 crore.
