Evolution of Telecom Industry in India
Telephone services in India began on a small scale with the commissioning of a 50-line manual telephone exchange in 1882 in Kolkata. This was less than five years after the invention of the telephone by Alexander Graham Bell.
Independent India, after partition, on 31st March 1948 was left with very few (7330)
telegraph offices. Departmental exchanges were 321 with 82985 telephones and
2166 private branch exchanges with another 38155 telephones (DoT Publications).
During that time some systems were installed and operated by the princely states.
The urgency of self-rule inspired opening of public call offices in cities and
important towns. “There were 537 such public call offices throughout the country.
The combined Post and Telegraph Department then had a fixed assets to the tune
of Rs. 315.1 million, of which Rs. 292.6 million were for telecommunication
services. There were 80873 miles (129395 km. approximately) of telegraph and
trunk telephones lines and 9746 miles of local telephone lines on that date”.
The telecommunication development of a country is best judged by the number of
its telephones. On the 1st January, 1951, there were approximately about 74.8
million telephones in the entire world. Out of these, India had only about 160,000.
(Refer table). United States had almost half of the total telephones all over the
world. This was one reasons for its international dominance in communication
technology at the time.
Number of Phones in Big Cities of India
S.no. City No. of Phones
1 Bombay 46,181
2 Calcutta 35,794
3 Delhi 14,852
4 Madras 11,102
5 Ahmedabad 13,782
6 Hyderabad 2,376
7 Bangalore 2,333
8 Lucknow 2,327
9 Kanpur 2,285
10 Nagpur 1,116
India’s poor showing in the field of telephones at the time of freedom was as much
a reflection of the state of the national economy as of its backwardness. Initially for
the government, postal department was the priority area. Yet it was the earnings of
the telephones that made up for the loss of the posts. Universalization of phone had
a long way to go, at that time money was the main problem.
After the implementation of the Federal Financial Integration Scheme on 1st April, 1950, the administration of the entire network of telegraphs and telephone systems of the nation, including those that previously existed in the former princely state became a major adventure. In 1950 the number of telephone exchanges absorbed from princely states was 196. This system which was working with different degrees of efficiency could fit into the general telecommunication network. The installed capacity of these 196 exchanges was 13,362 lines with 11,296 working connections. Soon after the absorption an attempt was made to improve their technical efficiency by replacing absolute and unserviceable equipment and lending well-qualified and experienced staff. Isolated exchanges were integrated with the general pool. The more complicated task was the accusation of the staff. Their final absorption into the different cadres of service in posts and telegraph was a major step. By April, 1972, the telecommunications accounts were separated. Simultaneously the department also started preparing the balance sheet annually.
In 1975 the department of telecom was separated from P & T. DOT was
responsible for telecom services in entire country until 1985 when Mahanagar
telephone Nigam Ltd was carved out of DOT to run the telecom service of Delhi &
Mumbai.
India had approx. 82 000 telephone connections at the time of independence (1947) and by 1984 the number of connections had slowly risen to 3.05 million. India's telecom network was notoriously unreliable and only available to a small section of households along with the corporate sector.
In the year 1985, the DOT was set up to provide domestic and long distance telephone services. The telecom services have been recognized the world-over as an important tool for socio-economic development of a nation and hence telecom infrastructure is treated as a crucial factor to realize the socio-economic objective in India. Accordingly, the DOT has been formulating development policies and projects for the accelerated growth of the telecommunication services. The Department is also responsible for frequency management in the field of radio connection in close coordination with the international bodies. It also enforces wireless regulatory measures by monitoring wireless transmission of all uses in the country. The DOT has been the premier telecom service provider in India with its presents through the length and breadth of the country. The Department in 1986 reorganized the Telecommunication circles with the SSAs as basic units. It was implemented in a phased manner. With a view to deciding matters of policy, a separate telecom Board, named the Telecom Commission, was also setup. The telecom commission was constituted in 1989. The Telecom commission was set up by the government of India with necessary executive, administrative and financial powers to deal with various aspects of Telecommunications.
In 1990 the telecom sector was opened by the government for private investment as a part of Liberalization Privatization Globalization policy.
The telecom sector was a government monopoly until 1994 when liberalisation gradually took place. Cellular service was launched in November 1995 in Kolkata. Therefore, it became a necessary to separate the Government’s policy wing from its operations wing. The Government of India seperated the operations wing of DoT on October 01, 2000 and named it as Bharat Sanchar Nigam Limited. Many private operators, such as Reliance India Mobile, Tata Telecom, Hutch, BPL, Bharti, idea etc., successfully entered the high potential Indian telecom market.
