The World Bank on Monday clarified that the Institutional Development Fund (IDF) Grant for the Sri Lanka Telecommunication Regulatory Commission (TRC) has no provision or scope to utilise these funds to implement an Internet censorship programme as implied by a local English weekly paper in its story titled Chinese here for cyber censorship.

In a statement here the World Bank said that the Institutional Development Fund (IDF) Grant for the Telecommunication Regulatory Commission (TRC) was signed in 2009.

It asserted that the pact has no provision or scope to utilise the grant these funds to implement an Internet censorship program as implied by the English weekly in its lead story titled Chinese here for cyber censorship.

“TRC is in the process of hiring consultants to assist it in the establishment of a policy and regulatory framework for Next Generation Networks (NGN). No consultant has yet been hired for this assignment. The hiring can only be completed with the final approval of the World Bank.

“This consultancy does not include any provisions or scope to include Internet censorship and the Bank would not approve any such provision. The overall objective of the NGN consultancy is to establish a Policy and Regulatory framework with the view to facilitate efficient investments in NGN and other new comparable technologies and maintain effective competition among the infrastructure and service providers while safeguarding the consumers interest”, the statement said. – (The Hindu)