Welcome Guest Login | Register | Site Map | | Make TelecomTiger my homepage     
Telecom News
Enterprise |  Policy & Regulation |  Mobiles & Tabs |  Corporate |  VAS |  People Movement  |  Technology  |  LTE
Policy & Regulation
DoT, DIPP will write to states for easing conduct of telecom business
TT Correspondent |  |  29 May 2018

The Department of Telecommunications (DoT) and the Department of Industrial Policy and Promotion (DIPP) will write to individual states to ensure implementation of right of way rules and for lowering the cost of setting up network, as part of a joint exercise for smoother conduct of business.

The DoT will also look into issues of high levies, taxation and faster generation of permits in the telecom sector, which is also envisaged in the department's new digital communications policy.

The move to write to states was decided upon after the industry raised a host of issues in a first of its kind meeting with both departments on Monday, marking the maiden such sectoral roundtables which will be done by Invest India - a national investment promotion and facilitation agency under DIPP - and India Mobile Congress, an annual event organised by DoT and industry body Cellular Operators Association of India (COAI).

COAI director-general Rajan Mathews said "One of the decision points that came out of the meeting was the DoT secretary and DIPP secretary writing to all the states highlighting the issues emanating from state level, for example, right of way, clearances, cost of network implementation are being highlighted".

DIPP through Invest India will also ensure that targets are being met, he said further, adding that startup firms raised their issue before government representative demanding that they should be given opportunity to participate in public projects. Startups also demanded that low-cost finance be made available to them and the government help to ease financial compliance rules.

Telecom secretary Aruna Sundararajan and DIPP secretary Ramesh Abhishek also discussed setting up of a committee for quicker clearing of permits under the new telecom policy, which looks at implementation, its success, timeframes and deliverables and ensure accountability from various government departments.

Although no timeframe was set for setting up this committee, it comes at a time when the telecom sector is going through its largest consolidation phase ever, with exits and mergers reducing the number of players from nearly 10-11 at one time to three or four. Speedy permissions to complete mergers and acquisitions are one of the pain points being experienced by the industry.

Mathews further said that the association along with established players like Vodafone India raised issues of telecom operators related high levies and low return.

"The draft National Digital Communications Policy 2018 proposes to address most of the telecom operators issue to achieve $ 100 billion investment but operators want to know by when will it be implemented," Mathews said.

Sundararajan, he said, assured the companies that the issues of telecom sector will be addressed in time bound manner by 2022 as mentioned in the draft.

    
Other Stories in this Section
 mail this article    print this article    Show and Post comment
29 May 2018(IST)  
Whitepaper
Maintain Business Continuity with Cisco ASR 9000 nV Technology
It is a virtual chassis solution where a pair of ASR 9000 routers acts as a single device by maintaining a single contr...read more
Simplify Your Network with Cisco ASR 9000 nV Technology
With the new Cisco Network Virtualization (nV) technology in the Cisco ASR 9000 Series Aggregation Services Routers, se...read more
Cisco Small Cell Solution: Reduce Costs, Improve Coverage
It is designed to address the challenge of mobile service coverage and to expand network capacity...read more