The Telephone Statistics for August 2011 as per TRAI is given below: This is compiled by Com. Mihir Dasgupta, former AGS, BSNLEU

Telephone Subscribers’ Base in India
for the month of August 2011
SERVICE
PROVIDER
COMPANY W I R E L I N E W I R E L E S S T O T A L Wireless
VLR
Proportion
%
Number Market Share
% Number Market Share
% Number Market Share
%
Bharti Airtel 3327797 9.77 171846824 19.85 175174621 19.47 88.86
Reliance 1255289 3.68 146066926 16.87 147322215 16.37 62.67
Vodafone 0.00 144144031 16.65 144144031 16.02 81.01
BSNL 24453818 71.78 95411079 11.02 119864897 13.32 52.79
Tata 1345601 3.95 88555271 10.23 89900872 9.99 50.40
Idea 0.00 98441714 11.37 98441714 10.94 91.55
Aircel/ Dishnet 0.00 59191661 6.84 59191661 6.58 52.43
Uninor 0.00 27738154 3.20 27738154 3.08 61.08
Sistema 43479 0.13 12835938 1.48 12879417 1.43 48.77
MTNL 3446216 10.12 5555087 0.64 9001303 1.00 37.42
Videocon 0.00 6382493 0.74 6382493 0.71 37.26
Loop Telecom 0.00 3181967 0.37 3181967 0.35 42.62
S-Tel 0.00 3433988 0.40 3433988 0.38 42.21
HFCL Infotel 195137 0.57 1445751 0.17 1640888 0.18 36.67
Etisalat/ Allianz 0.00 1477495 0.17 1477495 0.16 31.86
Total 34067337 100 865708379 100 899775716 100 70.30
TELE DENSITY
Urban 7.11 157.76 164.87
Rural 0.99 35.20 36.19
Overall 2.84 72.12 74.96
Broadband = 12.69 million
Source:
TRAI Press Release
dated 20th October, 2011
HIGHLIGHTS

 In Wireless (GSM+CDMA) segment, monthly growth marginally improved to 73.4 lac in August’11, compared to July’11. Top four performers in net Wireless Subscribers addition in Aug’11 are: Idea (23.3 lac), Reliance (12.8 lac), Bharti (11.5 lac) & Vodafone (11.3 lac). BSNL added only 2.6 lac. Worst loser is Videocon (- 6.5 lac). S-Tel lost 0.7 lac.

 Amongst BSNL Circles, Andhra Pradesh again recorded highest Wireless Subscribers’ growth of 3 lac in August’11 followed by Tamil Nadu (including Chennai) 1.9 lac, Kerala 1.3 lac &. Karnataka 1 lac. Eight Circles posted negative growth in August’11 viz. Rajasthan (2.4 lac), UP(E) (1.2 lac), Kolkata (92 K), west Bengal (41 K), Bihar (28 K), Haryana (20 K), Gujarat (3 K) & HP (2 K). In VLR position of August’11, Kerala Circle tops with 64.99%, followed by Andhra Pradesh 64.77%, J&K 62.59%, Maharashtra 61.16% & Bihar 60.09%. Kolkata TD occupies the last position with 34.66%, though improved marginally from last month’s 32.14%.

 VLR – Visitor Location Register shows the actual number of active Wireless telephones. In August 2011, VLR report indicated that only 70.30% (60.86 crore) of all wireless subscribers were active. Company-wise detailed status is shown in the table.

 Urban – Rural Divide on the Basis of Tele- Density: The gap i.e. Urban TD minus Rural TD is widening month by month as visualized from the consecutive 5 months’ figures : April’11= 125.2, May’11= 126.2, June’11= 127.5, July= 127.8% & Aug’11= 128.7%.

On this day, 21st October, two years back in 2009, All India BSNL-DOT Pensioners Association (AIBDPA) was formed at an All India Convention of Pensioners held in Delhi. The Convention was inaugurated by late Comrade M.K.Pandhe, the veteran trade union leader, who called upon the pensioners to rally together and fight against the move of the government to take away the hard earned rights of the workers and pensioners by the central government.
The last two years have been a period of continued struggles and agitations organised under the leadership of the AIBDPA. Along with the working employees, under the leadership of the Joint Action Committee of BSNL Associations and Unions of Executives and Non-Executives, two strikes were organised in April 20th and December 1-2, 2010 by which the government was compelled to agree for pension revision of pre-2007 BSNL retirees which was a great achievement. Many other issues have also been taken up by the AIBDPA.
The membership of the Association has increased substantially and the Association has been formed in almost all the circles in the short period of two years. More and more pensioners are joining the AIBDPA.The union quarterly journal ‘Tele Pensioner’ is being published regularly.
It is part of the National Co-Ordination Committee of Pensioners Association (NCCPA) as also BCPC, the umbrella organisation of the pensioners.
The fight against the anti-worker PFRDA is gaining momentum. A Parliament March is being organised on 25th November 2011, which will be participated by lakh of workers and pensioners. A good number of AIBDPA members are also participating in the March.
Within two years, AIBDPA has become an integral part of the DOT and BSNL Pensioners. AIBDPA will continue to fight for the rights of the pensioners along with the workers unions.
Best Wishes and Greetings to all members and well wishers on this AIBDPA Day!

Five foreign countries viz. US, UK, Australia, Canada and New Zealand has alerted its citizens against tour in India during the period October to January pointing to personal security in view of the terror attacks in the festival season. October to January is the peak season for tourists to India and this warning by foreign countries is goiin to adversely affect the tourist flow to India at this time. Whether the alert has been issued sincerely due to the chance for terror attacks or is a ploy to reduce the tour traffic to India in this peak season.

India is of course on the growth path! But the growth is limited to a minority of millionaires and billionaires. 90% people are not part of this big growth.
According to a report of the Credit Suisse Research Institute published, India has more than 2 lakh dollar millionaires now, which will be doubled to 403,000 by 2016. All these are having more than $ one million assets and the total come to $2.5 trillion.
At the same time, crores of people in India itself is living under Rs.32/ per day. The Planning Commission has shamelessly reduced the poverty line to Rs.26 in rural and Rs.32 in urban areas so as to deny any relief to these poorest section of people.
This Himalayan inequality is the creation of the neo-liberal policy being aggressively persued by the Government of India.This government has become insensitive to the poverty and sufferings of the poor in the country.
A strong movement is necessary to expose and defeat this anti-worker policies.

The consolidation in Telecom Services has started. Tatas have decided to merge all their telecom arms, Tata Teleservices, Tata Indicom etc. in to one brand under Tata DoCoMo. This will consolidate their CDMA, 3G, GSM and also Photon services. The major players have started their consolidation with a view to manage their finances and also to face the new situation in view of the NTP-2011.
BSNL is going to have a tough time with further competition.

With the Bengaluru Metro, Namma Metro, starting services from today 20th October,it will be a great relief to the people of the city. After the IT grand spread in this city and lakhs of IT professionals coming and adding to the population every year, the traffic was almost jammed completely in the morning and evening hours. Even to travel about 20-25 kms, one hour was not sufficient. Some of the big IT companies had shifted to the outskirts of the city to avoid traffic jam.
Whenever I went to Bengaluru, I experienced the same difficulties. Going to the Airport it takes more than one and half hours, which could be covered earlier by about 50 minutes. M.G.Road is almost blocked in the busy hours. Boards were erected on the roadsides advising the drivers to go through side roads to avoid traffic.
At present the metro is only for about 7 kms. but it may be extended shortly. I feel that once metro is fully operative, there will be some relief for the jammed traffic in Bangaluru.

The Communications and IT Ministry has released the Draft of the NTP 2011 last week. This is the third Telecom Policy. The first was the NTP-1994 and the second NTP -1999. Both policies gave a lot of benefits to the private telcos both in Licence Fee and other conditions. The third NTP, NTP-2011 is not different. The draft policy in available in the net. Everybody has the right to intimate their views in the matter to the ministry.
The CHQ of BSNLEU has already started this exercise seriously. And the suggestions/ amendments will be furnished to the Ministry. If any comrade has any important suggestion, it may be sent to the CHQ urgently.

The government is now thinking of closing the sick PSUs. It is part of the neo-liberal policies the government is aggressively implementing.
It is understood that the Department of Public Enterprises (DPE) has written to all the Ministries asking them to try revival of sick PSUs or close down them. The ministries are instructed to intimate whether the sick industry under their ministry is to be closed. It is also stated that the Prime Minister’s office also is involved in taking such a decision.
It is to be specially noted that the present Heavy Industries Minister Praful Patel under whom the PSUs are, while he was the Civil Aviation Minister has through his anti-PSU actions had made the Air India sick. Now he wants that all the sick PSUs be closed.
There are 38 PSUs, out of a total of about 240, which are sick. The government policy seems to be that through its policy decisions and actions make the PSU sick and then close it or hand over it to private companies at cheap rates.
The entire PSU workers have to unitedly oppose and defeat the government move to close down the PSUs.

An aspiration of the Telecom / BSNL Employees for long has been fulfilled today, 19th October. As per the decision of the Central Executive Committee of BSNL Employees Union, a Trust under the name of K.G.Bose Memorial Trust has been registered today at New Delhi. I am the Chairman, Com.P.Abhimanyu is the Managing Trustee and Coms. P.Asokababu, S.C.Bhattacharya, J.Sampat Rao, K.Mohanan and Animesh Mitra are the Trustees.
The Trust is formed with many objectives, mainly to propagate the great ideals of Comrade KG as also for trade union education. In addition it has also been decided by the CEC to purchase a building and name it as K.G.Bose Bhawan. The purchasing process is going on and we expect to inaugurate it on 11th December, the death anniversary of Comrade KG.

Team Anna seems to be under a physical attack for their fight against corruption.
Prashant Bhooshan was attacked last week in the Delhi court premises. Today, Arvind Kejrival has been attacked in a public meeting at Lucknow by a person hurling chappal at him.
This kind of attack has to be condemned by all. This will lead to a goonda raj.
Those who ae behind the attackers should be brought to book and punished.