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.