Kolkata: Telecom Regulatory Authority of India (TRAI) today (May 6, 2004) held mobile telephone operators responsible for not achieving the targeted additions in subscribers per month as per the National Telecom Policy (NTP) document of 1999.

TRAI member D P S Seth, while speaking at 'Telecom East - Stimulating Growth' seminar organised by Confederation of Indian Industry (CII-Eastern Region) in Kolkata, said that the industry was adding only two million subscribers per month against the target of three million.

With total subscriber base pegged at 34 million at the moment, the industry would have to add 66 million in next 21 months to meet the NTP target of 100 million by December 2005.

Seth said that the main reason for not being able to meet the target was that the operators were themselves surprised to see the growth levels in mobile telephone for which they did not add to the capacity at the right time.

He said that now they are building up capacities, which would help in increasing per month additions to 2.5 million, at the most.

Besides, he said that performance of the networks was also not consistent which had led to occasional fluctuations and congestions.

Seth said that the mobile phone operators were also not properly utilising spectrum allocation, which according to him, was far from being optimal.

Saying that TRAI would not tolerate this kind of a situation, Seth said that the Regulator would take appropriate action against them.

He said that there was a need for release of more spectrum and urged the operators to use the right technology for optimal use.

The TRAI member also harped on the importance of broadband penetration in the country, and the target set was 10 million customers for broadband and 20 million for Internet by the year 2010.

He also said that TRAI was also in favour of fiscal measures for lowering the tariff levels for broadband connectivity.

According to him, broadband penetration in India was only 0.02 per cent as compared to 67 per cent in Korea.

Seth said that fixed line operators would make a big comeback when broadband penetration increases in the country.

West Bengal IT Minister Manab Mukherjee and Tata Industries M D Kishor Chaukar also spoke at the seminar.