24-30 January 2014 #691

Connecting people

Interview with Anupranjan Bhattrai, the newly appointed Managing Director at Nepal Telecom, Himal Khabarpatrika, 19 January

What do you plan to achieve during your term as the Managing Director?

We will focus our attention towards expanding mobile internet. We want to improve the quality of our network and tie up with handset companies to make smartphones accessible to more users.

Why hasn’t Nepal Telecom’s quality improved over the years?

We have formed committees to look into the quality improvement of GSM mobile service. People in Kathmandu will notice a significant improvement in our network’s quality within a month.

Is it true that Nepal Telecom is incurring heavy losses like other government owned enterprises?

Nepal Telecom is a brand recognised across Nepal. I will tap into its brand name to make the company stronger. The only path now for us is to move forward.

Why hasn’t Nepal Telecom brought about aggressive expansion strategies and new programs for its long term benefit?

We are a government enterprise so bringing new services takes longer time through the public procurement. By the time we introduce a new service, the technology is too old for the users. We are working with Public Procurement Monitoring Office to ease the process so we can introduce our new services faster. 3G internet will be expanded across different districts and home- to -fiber technology for those who want higher internet bandwith will soon be made available.