Minister moves on idle telecom fund

State Minister for Telecom Tarana Halim has asked the officials of the telecom regulator and the Telecom Division to develop innovative ideas to utilise the social obligation fund collected from five mobile operators.

Bangladesh Telecommunication Regulatory Commission has raised Tk 725.49 crore as of June in contributions from mobile operators -- each paying 1 percent of its gross revenue.

"This is a huge amount of money indeed. I am surprised why the fund has not yet been used," Tarana said. "The fund will help us offer more digital services."

"I will also sit with the contributing operators to find ways to make best use of it."

Tarana made the comments after a meeting with the telecom regulator and the operators, at the secretariat last week.

As part of the 2010 telecom law, the telecom regulator started collecting the fund in November 2011, when Grameenphone, Banglalink, Robi and Citycell renewed their licences.

The fund will be used to develop the telecom network and serve more people with telecom services, according to the rules made by the government in December last year.

Grameenphone contributed Tk 321.83 crore to the fund, Banglalink Tk 140.16 crore, Robi Tk 137.86 crore and Airtel Tk 40.93 crore. Citycell stopped contributing to the fund after giving only Tk 1.29 crore as of March 2012 while state-owned Teletalk never took part in the initiative. As much as Tk 83.44 crore was added to the fund as bank interests.

The Telecom Division plans to place proposals before the committee, headed by Prime Minister Sheikh Hasina, which will handle the fund, Tarana said.

"This is our money and there is a written guideline on how to spend it. We hope the government will follow the guideline," a senior executive of a mobile operator said, asking not to be named.

India, Pakistan, Nepal, Thailand and Malaysia have utilised similar funds to upgrade rural basic telecom networks, broadband services and fibre optic backbone network, said Mustafa Hussain, an assistant professor of East West University and a specialist on the telecom industry.

They have also taken special initiatives to provide the senior citizens and underprivileged people with telecom services, which could be followed in Bangladesh also, he said.