Kathmandu, May 2: The Ministry of Communications and Information Technology has said that its serious attention was drawn to the internet service disruption by some privately-owned internet service providers.
Issuing a press statement this evening, the Ministry’s Assistant Spokesperson Bishal Sapkota has urged all the internet service providers not to disrupt the essential service like internet.
The Ministry has also asked the internet service providers and network service providers to timely pay the rural telecommunications development fees and royalties to be paid to the state as per the law, which was collected from the internet service users prior.
The Ministry has stated that most of the 122 internet service providers and 23 network service providers registered in the Nepal Telecommunications Authority have already cleared the fees to be paid as per the laws, and the Ministry is regularly making recommendations for them for the foreign currency exchange on the recommendation of the Nepal Telecommunications Authority.
However, the internet service providers, the Internet Service Providers’ Association (ISPA), have claimed that the government was behind the disruption. They said that the issue of 4 percent royalty and 2 percent Rural Telecommunication Development Funt (RTDF) were not applicable to internet service providers.
The ISPA has already warned government to settle this issue, and provide foreign currency to purchase internet bandwidth particularly from Indian parties. However, the Indian parties unanimously rejected to provide bandwidth to Nepali internet service providers.
Many clients of Subisu, WorldLink, Vianet, CG Net among others have been raising voice against the government’s move, and requesting to settle the issue soon.
