NT pays Rs 2.5b renewal fee in first instalment

KATHMANDU, JAN 11 -

Nepal Telecom (NT) has paid Rs 2.5 billion, the first instalment of licence renewal fee, to the government. The NT board, about two weeks ago, had decided to pay the renewal fee in eight instalments as prescribed by the government. The board had decided to pay the first instalment after Ncell, the private sector mobile service provider, paid the same amount of money in the first instalment on December 21 last year. As per the conditions required to operate the GSM mobile service, the state-owned company has to pay the government Rs 20.13 billion for renewing its licence.

“We paid the first instalment on Tuesday,” said Guna Kesari Pradhan, NT spokesperson. She said the Telecom would be clearing the dues annually in the remaining seven instalments. Of the total, NT now owes the government around Rs 18 billion in renewal fee for operating the GSM mobile service for 10 years (1999-2009).

NT had disbursed Rs 189 million four years ago when the Nepal Telecom munications Authority (NTA) renewed its licence “provisionally” under pressure from NT and its trade unions. Similarly, Ncell will have to pay remaining Rs 17.63 billion within the next seven years.

The NTA had directed both NT and Ncell to pay the renewal fee in instalments as per the provision set by the government. Based on the recommendation of Minister for Information and Communications Raj Kishor Yadav-led taskforce, the Financial and Infrastructure Committee of the Cabinet in September last year had decided to collect committed royalty and licence renewal fees from telecom operators on eight-year instalment basis. Following this decision, the Communications Ministry and the NTA had directed NT and Ncell to pay the renewal fee as the conditions require them to renew their operating licenses after 10 years. NT’s licence for the first 10 years had expired in 2009 and Ncell’s is expiring in 2014.

An official at the NTA said though it was late, the telecommunications authority was successful in collecting renewal fee partially from NT who was supposed to pay all Rs 20.13 billion four years ago. “Earlier, NT and Ncell had been pointing fingers at each other to pay the fee first,” said the official.

The instalment provision had made it easier for another operator United Telecom Limited (UTL) too for clearing the dues to the government. Immediately after the Cabinet decision, it had paid the first instalment of the committed royalty of Rs 204.18 million to get its licence renewed. According to the NTA, with the payment of the first instalment, UTL now has to pay the committed royalty dues of Rs 1.42 billion.

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One-child policy makes Chinese risk-averse: Study

AGENCE FRANCE PRESSE

SYDNEY, Jan 11: China´s one-child policy has created a generation that is less trusting, more risk-averse and perhaps less likely to become entrepreneurs, according to new Australian research released Friday.

Published in the journal Science, the study of more than 400 Beijing residents who were born around the time the controversial population policy was first introduced could have implications for China´s economy, researchers say. 

"We found that individuals who grew up as single children as a result of China´s one-child policy are significantly less trusting, less trustworthy, more risk-averse, less competitive, more pessimistic, and less conscientious," said University of Melbourne researcher Nisvan Erkal.

China introduced the policy in 1979 to combat population growth and family planning officials in Beijing have defended it in the past, saying China´s population -- currently 1.3 billion -- would have hit 1.7 billion without it.

The new study, "Little Emperors: Behavioural Impacts of China´s One-Child Policy", based on research by Erkal, Monash University and Australian National University academics, found the group displayed distinct behaviour.

The scholars used a series of "economic games" -- in which the 421 subjects born between 1975 and 1983 exchanged or invested small amounts of money, or made other economic decisions -- to measure their levels of trust, risk-taking and competitiveness.

In one game, participants born under the One-Child Policy (OCP) were on average found to be less trusting than those born before, sharing less of an endowment with another player (46.1 percent compared to 50.6 percent).

They also returned less than those not born under the policy (30.4 percent versus 35.4 percent). The researchers said both of these differences were statistically significant.

The study found the differences persisted, even after the impact of demography and family background were controlled.

"We found that being born before or after the one-child policy best explains our observations," Erkal, an associate professor, said.

In addition to the experiments, researchers also conducted personality surveys that they said revealed those born under the OCP were also "substantially more pessimistic, less conscientious, and possibly more neurotic".

"The OCP can be thought of as a natural experiment which enables us to separate out the effect of being an only child from the effect of family background," they wrote.

Fellow researcher Lisa Cameron from Monash said the effect could have economic implications.

"Our data shows that people born under the one-child policy were less likely to be in more risky occupations like self-employment," she said.

"Thus there may be implications for China in terms of a decline in entrepreneurial ability."

Cameron said researchers observed the negative effects of being an only child in China even if there was significant social contact with other children while growing up.

"We found that greater exposure to other children in childhood -- for example, frequent interactions with cousins and/or attending childcare -- was not a substitute for having siblings," she said.

The one-child policy in fact permits some families to have several children. Parents in the countryside can have two children if their firstborn is a girl, while ethnic minority families are often exempt from birth restrictions.

Talk of phasing out the unpopular one-child policy has been mounting, with an influential think-tank with close links to the government recently proposing families be allowed to have two children by 2015.

The China Development Research Foundation (CDRF) called for a relaxation of the policy in October, saying the country had paid "a huge political and social cost" for the measure, which has been blamed for creating a demographic time-bomb.

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