Free mobile internet for rural areas

New delhi December 20 : With an aim to support the Centre's drive of creating a cashless system, the Telecom Regulatory Authority of India (Trai) on Monday recommended that a reasonable amount of free mobile internet should be provided to rural subscribers every month.

This scheme, the costs of which are suggested to be met from the government's Universal Service Obligatory Fund (USOF), would be facilitated by third-party aggregators, which are agnostic telecom service providers, Trai said.


"In order to bridge the affordability gap for the persons residing in rural areas and to support government's efforts towards cashless economy by incentivising digital means, the Authority recommends that a scheme under which a reasonable amount of data say 100 MB per month may be made available to rural subscribers for free," the sector regulator said. The Department of Telecommunications (DoT) charges a cess to telecom operators under the USOF, proceeds from which are used for increasing telecom connectivity by setting up infrastructure across the rural and remote areas of the country.