Concerned that the telecom legacy of UPA-I has shown the country’s growth story and investment climate in poor light, the government machinery is working hard to dispel negative perceptions about the telecom sector and coalesce the fractured telecom industry.
Highlighting that the government and the industry needed to act in concert to focus on the ?growth story of the country?, finance minister Pranab Mukherjee recently dashed a missive to telecom minister Kapil Sibal expressing his concerns over the state of the telecom industry.
?The government and the industry should jointly work towards highlighting the growth story of the country. This would help dispel the negative perception about the slowdown in India?s growth and also improve the business sentiments in the country,? Mukherjee said.
The letter has come at a time when Mukherjee himself has come under scrutiny for a letter written by a finance ministry official pointing fingers at the home minister P Chidambram who, the letter says, could have averted the 2G scam.
The letter also shows Mukherjee?s concern that the 3G spectrum auctions have ?starved? the telecom companies in the country. Making a case for rationalising the licence fee, a varying percentage of annual revenue paid by the telecom operators to the government, Mukherjee has said, ?although it is important to transparently auction spectrum and as it is a scarce resource, a balanced and rational approach is required with regard to auctions and licence fees?.
Responding to the letter, Sibal has acknowledged that one reason why the 3G and the broadband wireless access spectrum (BWA) auction prices skyrocketed was because of uncertainty over future availability of spectrum. The 3G price frenzy was aided by the shoddy 2G spectrum allocation during A Raja?s tenure. Sibal has clearly said that the amount of spectrum with the government and future availability would be transparently released to the public under the proposed National Telecom policy 2011.
The letter reflects the change in the government?s approach towards the sector. Previously telecom policies followed under the UPA-I?s regime had sharply divided the telecom industry like never before.