USOF may be enlarged and used to boost telecom equipment manufacturing

The Universal Service Obligation Fund (USOF) — renamed Digital Bharat Nidhi in the new Telecom Bill — may be used to create a mega money source for research and development (R&D) into networking and telecom equipment manufacturing, department of telecommunications (DoT) officials said.

The DoT is discussing how to ramp up the Telecom Technology Development Fund (TTDF), which is currently pegged at 5 per cent of the annual collections of the USOF or about Rs 500 crore.

“Given how the USOF has an all-time high unused balance of more than Rs 78,000 crore as of October, some proposals have been made for enlarging the scope and size of the TTDF.