NEW DELHI: India expects to have half a billion phone connections in place by the end of the decade, a minister said on Wednesday, as the country tries to better connect its sprawling rural population.

The country, home to more than a billion and one of the world's fastest growing telecoms markets, hopes to expand its number of connections to 250 million by the end of 2007, a jump of more than 30 per cent, Telecom Minister Dayanidhi Maran told reporters.

While telecom penetration is increasing in urban areas, vast swathes of India's rural hinterland remain untapped, Maran said.

Out of the targeted 500 million phones by 2010, the minister said he wanted one-fifth to be in rural areas, and called for a huge infrastructure programme to meet the target.

To make this possible, 18,000 new communications towers would be built under an infrastructure-sharing programme to support rural telecom connections. Telephone penetration is currently around 25 per 100 people in urban areas, but as low as 1.6 per 100 in rural areas.—AFP