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Home > Business > Business Headline > Report
Mahajan steps in to resolve telecom battle
January 20, 2003 16:28 IST
The government on Monday finally stepped in to resolve the ongoing battle among mobile operators and said efforts are on to iron out the differences that had paralysed telecom services in the capital.
''I shall be meeting the mobile operators this afternoon and the outcome will be given out immediately,'' IT and Communications Minister Pramod Mahajan said on Monday while inaugurating Supercomm India 2003 in New Delhi.
Mahajan said, ''The regulator may give a decision which won't satisfy all, it may even make a mistake, but you must be ready to accept it also.''
He pointed out that if the mobile operators do not agree to provide interconnection to CDMA-WLL as per the Telecom Regulatory Authority of India's recent order they ''can always approach higher levels of authority--TDSAT and then the Supreme Court''.
The minister reiterated that he is not being partial to anyone. ''We do not want to be partial to anyone. If they have problems, we shall address them,'' the minister said.
On cellular operators plea for level playing field, he said that no one could deny this.
Although there are ''air pockets'' in the telecom sector, the country will witness increase of 10 million subscribers each year in the mobile segment. Total mobile subscriber base will grow to a whopping 25 million this calendar year as there is a 300 million strong middle-class with huge purchasing power.
He gave credit to the private sector and multinational companies and said this telecom revolution has happened without government spending a single penny.''Money came from outside, but the government came out with supportive policy.'' The N K Singh Committee's recommendation to increase the limit for foreign direct investment in the telecom sector from 48 to 74 per cent is being considered and a proposal to that effect is ready, Mahajan said.
He, however, said spectrum allocation is a problem in India as it is with the defence ministry. ''Taking spectrum from defence is not easy.'' On being partial to state-owned telecom companies BSNL and MTNL, he said the government does not want to protect them but they cannot be allowed to perish as they give employment to 400,000 people. ''We are helping them to survive and become competent,'' Reliance Industries CMD Mukesh Ambani said negative attitude being witnessed of late will not stop the reduction in price and speed of technology. ''There is no point stopping this,'' the architect of Reliance Infocomm, which laid the huge WLL-CDMA network recently and was in a thick of controversy over interconnect issue, said.
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