One seemingly less important budget proposal made yesterday by President Mahinda Rajapakse – many might have missed it – is the eligibility extension of the popular ‘low cost’ UPAHARA package by Mobitel to clergy and employees of co-op societies. Only public sector employees plus retirees had the privilege before.

No doubt, a private company, even a one with govt hand in it, can offer special rates for a niche market, which it finds lucrative. However, when that is recognized more as govt policy, and spelled in a budget speech, inevitably eyebrows go up and questions arise.

The most deserving beneficiaries of low cost teleuse are the poor – or the so called ‘Bottom of the Pyramid’ (BoP). That we all agree.

As LIRNEasia found from its previous Teleuse at BoP studies, contrary to the popular belief, 92% Sri Lankans in BoP use phones, though not necessarily own them. The ownership was 41% in 2006, but certainly more now.

On a scale of 1-5 (1= worsened, 5=improved) BoP teleusers in Sri Lanka marked their perceptions of the ability of a telephone at 4.58 to act in an emergency, 4.35 to build family and social relations, 3.98 to increase the efficiency of daily activities, and 3.19 to earn more or spend less on their day to day activities. Bottom line: Telecom is not a luxury for poor – but an essential part in their livelihoods.

So why doesn’t the govt offer the advantage of low cost communication to the poor?

Most in the two newly introduced categories – clergy and cooperative society employees, just like most govt employees – do not fall to the two categories D and E – the bottom-most layers in the social pyramid. They are placed at the top layers. They are not the ones who need financial support most.

Is there any logic in preventing a poor farmer the benefit of low cost communication which, for instance, the Secretary of the Ministry of Finance himself enjoys?

Why support the better-off, ignoring the poor?

(Catroon is by Anjana Indrajith of Lakbima)

“Best Regulator’s Website Of Asia Pacific Region

LIRNEasia is a regional ICT policy and regulation capacity building organization funded by IDRC and infoDev of World Bank. The organization evaluated 27 websites from the Asia Pacific region covering 62 economies. The website of PTA was declared as the best website among all the national websites of regulators of Asia Pacific and regional economies. The website was declared best on the basis of availability of legislative & consumer information, future plans, continuous updating, user friendliness, links to external sites and availability of information on mission statement, organizational chart, contact and online forms.”

‘Sri Lanka’s cabinet has agreed clear up frequency spectrum on few bands, as the government looks to attract new operators to offer telephony services at affordable rates.

“The cabinet has agreed to clear spectrum in 450 megahertz, 800-900 megahertz, 1800 megahertz and 2-gigahertz radio frequencies, which will be re-allocated for public telecommunications networks,” Media Minister Anura Priyadharshana Yapa told reporters Thursday.’

Spectrum refarming is one of the most important and difficult tasks facing regulatory agencies today. The quasi-property rights enjoyed by users requires that they be compensated for the losses they incur when they are compelled to move in the course of refarming. One of the groups most resistant to moving are the military. Involvement at the Prime Minister’s level has been necessary to deal with this problem in India.

In Sri Lanka, the authorities may consider giving a direction to the Ministry of Finance that the compensation that should be paid to entities vacating frequencies should calculated on a replacement cost basis rather than on a depreciated cost basis. This was the main reason the clearing of the 1800 MHz band (for which app. USD 2 million has been collected from Dialog and Mobitel) has been slowed down.