The recent moves by the government to check prices of steel and cement by negotiating with companies was severely criticised by Rajeev Chandrasekhar, Rajya Sabha member and president of the Federation of Indian Chambers of Commerce and Industry (Ficci) on Friday. Speaking at the Idea Exchange programme of the Express Group, Chandrasekhar said that investigating price rise is the sole responsibility of industry regulators, who are expected to work in the interest of people, and not the domain of the government.
Citing the example of the Telecom Regulatory Authority of India’s (Trai), recent recommendation of with regard to foreign direct investment in news and radio, he said that Trai or any other regulator for that matter was not formed to take on the political or administrative jobs. Instead they were expected to be independent bodies, working as trustee of consumer interest.
“Cartelisation is not an issue that the government should intervene. Instead, if industry players are citing influence of market forces for either an increase or decrease in prices at the same time, they have to be accountable to the regulator who in turn should be under the scrutiny of the Centre,” he said, adding that the regulator oversight mechanism is not happening satisfactorily.
According to Chandrasekhar, the basic premise that a regulator has to be a bureaucrat has to be done away with. The sole responsibility of a regulator should be to nurture, foster and ensure clear and robust competition that can benefit customers, he said.
The legislative framework for the formulation of a regulator way back in 1997, including competition commission, is solid. But today we need enough public opinion and enormous pressure to ensure that even the coalition governments are forced to question the regulators over their responsibility in controlling cartelization that is happening across different sectors, he said.
Responding to a recent drop in STD tariffs by major telecom players at the same time and various such other instances that had happened in the past, Chandrasekhar said that there is enough evidence in the telecom sector that suggests that there has been a concerted increase and decrease in prices. While the industry regulator defines it as a coordinated price movement, I call it cartelisation, he said.
