LOOKING AT AFGHANISTAN
– India is blind to the opportunities at its doorstep
Commentarao S.L. Rao
The author is former director- general, National Council for Applied Economic Research
Afghanistan has become bracketed with Iraq and its instabilities. In Afghanistan, the mujahedin ousted the Soviet occupiers and then lapsed into civil war. Afghans welcomed the taliban because they brought peace after protracted turmoil. They then suffered the oppressively fundamentalist and conservative rule by the illiterate and brutal taliban. The American invasion has led in the last five years to much reconstruction and economic growth.
—
At an international conference in Kabul sponsored by the Aga Khan on creating an enabling environment for private initiative, telecommunications was rated a major success. There are other smaller ones as well. In 2003, telecom was a national monopoly with 12,000 fixed line phones in the whole country, 50,000 mobile phones and 20,000 satellite phones. The cost per call was three to four dollars per minute. For long distance calls, Afghans had to trudge hundreds of miles to a neighbouring country.
Today, there are 2.5 million subscribers, with five operators, one of the four private companies, Roshan, having 50 per cent share. Call rates today vary around 10 cents per minute for a local call anywhere in the country and 45 cents for international calls. The market is growing at 50,000 new connections per month. Roshan is the leader and the other operators follow its lead. It employs over 1,000 people of average age 23, and indirectly (outsourcing and so on) another 20,000. Except corporate accounts, almost all subscribers are pre-paid ones. As in India now, each has to submit personal details, but apparently the police have no access to cell phone calls except through the ministry. Telecom contributes to 10 per cent of government tax revenues. Roshan provides all employees with transport to work and back, lunch, and has significant community involvement in health, education, children and rural social work. Women are 40 per cent of this work force.
High illiteracy, desire for communication, news and information explain the demand for cell phones. It will help to bind the country since the coverage is already over 45 per cent of Afghanistan. Roshan was promoted by the Aga Khan Development Network (as it did a five-star hotel and other investments) as part of its high-risk initiatives programme. The network is ready for its investments but it will take time in becoming self-sustaining. In Afghanistan, it is now doing very well. These investments have introduced new norms for behaviour and responsibility as well as skills in a workforce unaccustomed to such. There are said to be 16,000 local community councils. These constitute a tremendous resource for decentralized development, essential for a country as individualistic and tribal as this. Afghanistan must encourage private organizations to become active. Here, the existing network of local councils is ideal and must be more fully used.
Ismailimail 