New Delhi, India (CNN) -- India set the stage for a new wave of competition in its booming telecom industry Thursday as it allowed its 750 million mobile users to change operators without losing their existing cellphone numbers.
Prime Minister Manmohan Singh launched the mobile number portability (MNP) service, a facility that he said would cost a subscriber as less as Rs. 19 or 41 cents.
"Today's occasion marks a very important milestone in the evolution of telecommunications in our country," Singh said.
Home to 1.2 billion people, India has made rapid strides in telecommunications in the last decade.
The nation's mobile subscriber base has now swollen to around 750 million from a mere 33 million in 2004, Singh said. About 15 million new users are added each month, he added.
"More of our countrymen have been touched by this revolution than by any other program, product or service in the history of our nation and that too at a pace unprecedented in the world at large," Singh said.
Not too long ago -- until India unleashed economic reforms in the 1990s -- Indians had to wait for years to get landline connections at their homes and businesses from state-run telephone companies.
Today, a number of private players are locked in stiff price wars as they jostle for a pie in what is now billed as the world's fastest-growing telecom market.
"(The) implementation of (the) MNP will not only give wider choices to the Indian subscribers but will also compel service providers to offer innovative, affordable and competitive tariff plans for the benefit of the masses," said the country's telecommunications ministry.
Ironically though, one of the worst corruption scandals to have hit India in recent times is also linked to the same lucrative sector.
Singh has come under intense attack from opposition lawmakers after a government audit reported the treasury lost up to $31 billion from below-price sale of second-generation wireless spectrum in 2008.
The alleged scam has forced the country's telecom minister, A. Raja, to step down. Raja, a member of a key regional ally of Singh's Congress party, denies the charges.
Singh insists wrongdoers will be punished.
By Harmeet Shah Singh, CNN
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