KATHMANDU: Employees’ union of the Nepal Telecommunications Authority (NTA) has piled pressure on NTA Board and management to issue ultimatum to United Telecom Limited (UTL) to collect unified licence. The union on Tuesday provided one month’s time to do so.
The demand to handover UTL the unified licence and ensure competition in market is one of the 15-demands put forth by the NTA Independent Employees’ Union on Tuesday. “NTA has to provide ultimatum to UTL to make it claim licence and if it fails take it, the decision to issue the permit has be cancelled,” said Achyuta Nanda Mishra, president of the union.
UTL which was decided to assign unified licence in April last year along with Smart Telecom has been saying that it would claim licence only after going through the detailed verdict of the Supreme Court. However, NTA is yet to receive the verdict from the court which had given go ahead to the licence regime in September 2013 scrapping cases filed against the licence provision.
Unified licence allows company obtaining it to provide services that include GSM mobile, local, domestic trunk and international long distance calls. Smart Telecom which took the licence immediately after the NTA decision is delaying service expansion for its internal dispute regarding share ownership.
Amid snail pace network expansion work of Smart Telecom and Nepal Satellite Telecom (NST), the union have also condemned the NTA of failing to check if the companies were working properly. The 15-ponits demand include carrying out monitoring on service of Smart Telecom and NST, maintaining transparency in NTA, recruiting employees in vacant posts and automation of the NTA office.
Mishra said that the inefficiency of the NTA had indicated of supporting possible ‘black marketing’ of permits issued and demanded to start monitoring of network expansion of Smart Telecom and NST within a month. “Companies are only holding licence instead of expanding service as specified in their permits and NTA is least bothered to check,” he added.
When asked about the demand of the union, Ananda Raj Khanal, officiating chief of the NTA said that they had been just managing the NTA for complications in the regularity body for long time. “NTA does not exist in isolation and there is no chairman here for last one and half year to make prompt policy decisions,” he added. The union which is at loggerhead with the Ministry of Information and Communications (MoIC), NTA Board and management for long time in different issues including provision that requires taking consent of MoIC for facilities to be offered to NTA employees.
The demand to handover UTL the unified licence and ensure competition in market is one of the 15-demands put forth by the NTA Independent Employees’ Union on Tuesday. “NTA has to provide ultimatum to UTL to make it claim licence and if it fails take it, the decision to issue the permit has be cancelled,” said Achyuta Nanda Mishra, president of the union.
UTL which was decided to assign unified licence in April last year along with Smart Telecom has been saying that it would claim licence only after going through the detailed verdict of the Supreme Court. However, NTA is yet to receive the verdict from the court which had given go ahead to the licence regime in September 2013 scrapping cases filed against the licence provision.
Unified licence allows company obtaining it to provide services that include GSM mobile, local, domestic trunk and international long distance calls. Smart Telecom which took the licence immediately after the NTA decision is delaying service expansion for its internal dispute regarding share ownership.
Amid snail pace network expansion work of Smart Telecom and Nepal Satellite Telecom (NST), the union have also condemned the NTA of failing to check if the companies were working properly. The 15-ponits demand include carrying out monitoring on service of Smart Telecom and NST, maintaining transparency in NTA, recruiting employees in vacant posts and automation of the NTA office.
Mishra said that the inefficiency of the NTA had indicated of supporting possible ‘black marketing’ of permits issued and demanded to start monitoring of network expansion of Smart Telecom and NST within a month. “Companies are only holding licence instead of expanding service as specified in their permits and NTA is least bothered to check,” he added.
When asked about the demand of the union, Ananda Raj Khanal, officiating chief of the NTA said that they had been just managing the NTA for complications in the regularity body for long time. “NTA does not exist in isolation and there is no chairman here for last one and half year to make prompt policy decisions,” he added. The union which is at loggerhead with the Ministry of Information and Communications (MoIC), NTA Board and management for long time in different issues including provision that requires taking consent of MoIC for facilities to be offered to NTA employees.
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