UNIVERSAL SERVICE OBLIGATION FUND (USOF)

  • February 17, 2022
  • Posted by: OptimizeIAS Team
  • Category: DPN Topics
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UNIVERSAL SERVICE OBLIGATION FUND (USOF)

TOPIC: Governance

Context- Reliance Jio has asked the Telecom Regulatory Authority of India (TRAI) to stop collecting from telecom operators contributions to the Universal Service Obligations (USO) fund until the existing corpus is utilised.

Concept-

  • The Indian telecom sector is a heavily taxed sector among the Asian countries.
  • The contribution to the USO Fund by telecom service providers is equivalent to 5 per cent of AGR paid on quarterly basis.

USOF:

  • The Universal Service Obligation Fund (USOF) was formed by an Act of Parliament, was established in April 2002 under the Indian Telegraph (Amendment) Act 2003.
  • It aims to provide financial support for the provision of telecom services in commercially unviable rural and remote areas of the country.
  • It is an attached office of the Department of Telecom, and is headed by the administrator, who is appointed by the central government.
  • USOF is a non-lapsable Fund.
  • The Levy amount is credited to the Consolidated Fund of India. The fund is made available to USOF after due appropriation by the Parliament.
  • The National Optical Fibre Network (NOFN)/ Bharatnet which aims to connect all the 2,50,000 Gram panchayats in the country and provide 100 Mbps connectivity to all gram panchayats (GPs) was funded by the Universal Service Obligation Fund (USOF).

TRAI:

  • The Telecom Regulatory Authority of India (TRAI) was established by the Telecom Regulatory Authority of India Act, 1997.
  • TRAI regulates telecom services including fixation/revision of tariffs for telecom services which were earlier vested in the Central Government.
  • The head office of the Telecom Regulatory Authority of India (TRAI) is located at New Delhi.
  • The recommendations of the TRAI are not binding upon the Central Government.
  • The TRAI Act was amended in 2000 which established a Telecommunications Dispute Settlement and Appellate Tribunal (TDSAT) to take over the adjudicatory and disputes functions from TRAI.
Governance UNIVERSAL SERVICE OBLIGATION FUND (USOF)