how does technology affect society

 

Technology affect the modern Society

 

 

 

 

Ø Of India nearly 3.2 crore telephones covering only 4 to 5 crore people an estimated 1 crore are installed in homes, the rest in offices and business premises.

Ø From 60 percent of the one crore or so home phones, only few local calls are made and long distance calls are rare. Hence the bills are low. The remaining nearly 40 lakhs home phones belong to about 2 crore mostly affluent people, largely in business and government. Till a year ago, Do earned a revenue surplus business premises and the hines of the affluent.

 

DoT used this surplus to provide nearly 50 lakhs new telephones a year.

 

ü Following recent policy decisions, the government has now corporatised the telecom sector ( who has increased Dot's costs) and initiated privatisation of basic local and long distance services. Long distance charges have also been reduced. As a result of these measures, Dot's revenue surplus fell by about 30 per cent last year, and much less is now available for rural connectivity. If these measures continue, Dot's revenue surplus will soon fall to zero.

 

Without a budgeting support from the government, and also without a surplus to subsidise telephone development, dot will need to borrow money to provide local phones. To make the investment tariffs will need to be higher, which most of the villagers will be unable to afford.

 

Hence, while a few crore Indians who have phones will have the most modern, state-of-the-art services, equivalent to that available in developed countries, the remaining population will have poor or no connectivity.

When local tariff rises, as it inevitably will in the  coming months, demand will fall below 45 lakhs it may even fall below 30 lakhs and most of these remaining applicants  are likely to be the better-off city dwellers the present government policies will therefore considerably slow down the envisaged telecom development.

For rapid telecom development in India, we need to wait till every home has  a telephone before privatising and corporatising  this is what the developed countries. Did they maintained a government monopoly and adopted a higher long distance tariff structure without introducing competition until teledensity rose substantially

There is still time to salvage the situation to some extent India Today has a large telecom network with 32 million phones. Growing at an annual rate of nearly 20 per cent the country requires support to maintain this rate of growth without increasing local service tariffs at last for the next five years India should not push for further privatisation and similar  populist policies, since these will all lead to increased local tariffs.

Only by stalling such moves and using the revenue surplus will it be possible to connect the homes of 1 crore new indians every year for improving efficiency ( often mentioned as the reason for ushering in privatisation). Available modern techniques need to be adopted. As global experience has shown, privatisation and corporatisation are not the solutions for either rapid growth or efficiency in the telecom sector. The private sector in India has installed only 2.5 lakh phones in the last five - six years. These have gone mostly to privileged urban users.

 

·      Halting further privatisation and corporation for the present will in no way impede India's it revolution, stop the spread of e - commerce or delay the induction of convergence.

·      On the contrary, as more Indians are telephonically connected there will be an expanding market for all these additional facilities that emerge in the future.

Today cellular services target essentially the 2 crore who are also the beneficiaries of basic long distance and  local services including the internet only if new user get telephone access the demand for new services can also increase without bringing new rural users into the orbit of telecom access the it revolution will get curtailed.

So let us not develop telecom in India in a warped manner by creating a small privileged enclave while the rest get left far behind if the government persists with it's current

Policies, India is likely to remain a poor country with few telecom.