The rising trend in the number of new telecom subscribers continued to be maintained in the month of July 2006 with a net addition of about 5.14 million phones — an average daily addition of 1.66 lakh lines. The Northeast, Madhya Pradesh and Maharashtra ranked high in the growth rate.

The total number of telephones in the country crossed 158.32 million, as against a total of 153.18 million as on June 30, 2006, a growth of 3.3 per cent. The growth in July 2006 was 49 per cent over that of July 2005. Almost the entire growth registered was in the wireless segment — with GSM contributing 3.6 million and CDMA contributing 1.46 million respectively. The additions in the fixed line segment during the month was about 0.08 million.

The overall teledensity improved further to 14.12 per cent in July 2006 from 13.68 per cent in June 2006 and from 9.60 per cent as on July 31, 2005. The Northeast and Madhya Pradesh telecom circles recorded the highest growth rate (8.48 per cent) in the GSM segment, followed by the West Bengal and Andaman & Nicobar telecom circle (6.80 per cent).

In the CDMA segment, the total subscriber base registered a growth of 4.75 per cent with a net addition of 1.46 million subscribers. Maharashtra and Andhra Pradesh telecom circles contributed the maximum to this addition. Maharashtra alone added five lakh subscribers during the month. Public sector service providers has reached 388 cities. Under Bharat Nirman Programme, of the targeted 66,822 villages remaining to be covered in November 2004, a total of 27,481 villages have been provided with public telephones

Pakistan has put off adding some 150 items for import from India, following the new wave of tension between the two countries. Last week, Pakistan and India expelled two senior diplomats declaring them persona non grata. This came after India postponed a scheduled foreign secretary-level meeting between the two countries after the Mumbai blasts that killed around 200 people.

Days before the diplomats’ expulsion, however, foreign secretaries of both the nuclear armed neighbours had a meeting in Dhaka on the sidelines of a preparatory conference for the Saarc summit to be held in India.The diplomats’ expulsion renewed a war of words between the two countries, who have fought three major wars on the Kashmir issue. The process of expanding the "Indian importable items" list has been suspended lately amid growing tension between the two neighbouring countries, official sources said.

The ministry of industry and production, the sources said, had forwarded a list of 150 items for inclusion in the list of importable items from India but the government has delayed action on the plan. Most of items in the list are either machinery or industrial raw materials, not being manufactured in Pakistan.

A ministry official confirmed that the ministry had sought expansion in the existing 775 importable item list, but the matter has been put on the back burner as the final decision for approval lies with the Economic Coordination Committee. "Inclusion of any item in the import list, forward by any trade organisation, requires a political will which is missing owing to growing tension between the two nations," said the official.

Around 14 proposals have been forwarded to the commerce ministry and meetings with the high-ups were being held to finalise the list. The ministry of industry has recommended amendments to the Import Policy Order 2005 to meet the trade-related investment measures after the auto sector switched over from deletion programme to tariff-based system in the Budget 2006-07, which the Central Bureau of Revenue (CBR) has implementing from July 1.

In this respect, a detailed discussion within the commerce and industry ministries has been held to make sure that none of the 150 items included in the list are being manufactured locally. The meeting said the import of these items from India would be cost-effective, particularly in terms of freight charges and the products will take less time in reaching Pakistani market.