The newly inducted State Minister for Posts and Telecommunications Tarana Halim has already jerked the country's telecom sector. On assuming office last month she warned against any bid for corruption in the ministry and its concerned departments. And only last week, in a surprise visit to few mobile telecom vendors in the centre of the capital, she discovered the illegal business of sale of unregistered SIM (subscriber identity module) cards. The new young minister must have raised her eyebrows and started to gauze the path ahead in her committed pursuit to check corruption in her domain.
Undoubtedly, the telecom sector has been playing a significant role in the country's socio-economic development. Besides siphoning a huge amount of money to the national exchequer through taxes, the sector has enhanced the quality of life for the people including ensuring accessibility to easy and affordable communication. With the adoption of modern technology, the cellular phone sector, in particular, has been visibly dominant in upscaling national development on various fronts such as trade & commerce, health, education and disaster management. The most notable success story has been in the banking sector where millions of unbanked poor people now have the opportunity to transact money through mobile phones.
However, there are many people walking around this bustling domain with dirty feet. Whether in the business of SIM sale or in VOIP or in any related field, these dark horses are posing serious threats to the growth and sustainability of the sector. While the government is losing a huge amount of revenue from such malpractices, the sector itself is poised to be vulnerable resulting in loss of foreign investment opportunities.
The new minister has already indicated her holistic mission to purify the reported corruption riddled telecom sector where various stakeholders point fingers at each other for the menace. Despite so many attempts in the past to track the real offenders, the trend goes unabated. For example, the law enforcers unearthed several network of illegal VOIP businesses many times; the High Court directed the mobile phone operators in April last year to strongly deal with those issuing unregistered SIM etc. The ghosts must be vivant, hiding safe, somewhere.
Often, there have been calls to revamp the Bangladesh Telecommunication Regulatory Commission (BTRC). In fact, this organisation has a daunting task of playing its due role in materialising the vision of digital Bangladesh. More so with the government aiming to be in the horizon of satellite technology, the importance of BTRC should be mounting in the days ahead. It is imperative that there should be proper build-up of capacity of BTRC; at the same time, its regulatory role could be extended to controlling authority as well. This would not only empower the organisation to ensure discipline in the sector but also make it duly accountable to national policies and aspirations as well.
As a corollary organ, AMTOB (Association of Mobile Telecom Operators of Bangladesh) should be playing a catalytic role in ensuring disciplined implementation of government policies while safeguarding the interest of the operators. Unfortunately, AMTOB has never demonstrated its ability to pursue such responsibility. It should go beyond its current tenet of post-office syndrome.
With all good luck to the new minister, it can be expected that the telecom sector will soon be recharged well to accelerate the pace towards digitising our society. A wider digitised society can help plug the holes of corruption.
The writer is a CSR consultant & broadcaster. mohicsr@gmail.com
Telecom sector needs to be recharged
Mohiuddin Babar | Published: August 18, 2015 00:00:00 | Updated: November 30, 2026 06:01:00
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