Universal Service Obligation Fund

Established in 2002

Provides subsidies to ensure telegraph services are provided to everyone across India, especially in the rural and remote areas.

It is headed by the USOF Administrator who reports to the Secretary, Department of Telecommunications (DoT).

Funds come from the Universal Service Levy (USL) of 5% charged from all the telecom operators on their Adjusted Gross Revenue (AGR) which are then deposited into the Consolidated Fund of India, and require prior parliamentary approval to be dispatched.

The USOF works through a bidding process, where funds are given to the enterprise quoting the lowest bid.

However, the funds for NOFN were made an exception to this process since BBNL was the sole party involved in the implementation having being specifically created for it.

USOF money is used for NOFN project.

The government is planning to unveil a new scheme to provide mobile phone access to over 55,000 villages, particularly those in border states and in the Himalayan region, to push forward its flagship Digital India programme.

Government has announced to bring high-speed broadband connectivity to every village by 2018.