As per Economic Survey presented to the Parliament on 25th February 2011 by the Government, there are still 62,443 villages still unconnected with telecom services. As usual, the government promises to telecom-connect these villages by Village Public Telephones (VPT), with support from the Universal Service Obligation Fund (USOF).

BSNL in the last few years have installed VPTs in 40,101 villages, which helped to boost the telecom services in the villages. However, though there was licence stipulation that connections in village/rural areas are to be given, most of the private companies did not fulfil this condition earlier. They started providing village connections only after support from the USOF was assured. At the same time, BSNL had been giving such loss making connections continuously as a committment of the Government. If the private companies had also given connections like that, the number of unconnected villages would have been reduced drastically.

The Government should assist BSNL sufficiently for all the connections given in the villages earlier and at present.