The government is likely to give go-ahead to the National Telecom Policy, which aims to make the country’s telecommunications sector more transparent, relax merger and acquisition norms to encourage consolidation and also give more teeth to sector regulator and de-link spectrum from licences.

According to the sources, the Union cabinet meeting to be chaired by the Prime Minister Manmohan Singh is likely to discuss the new telecom policy on Thursday.

The draft policy also proposes to implement one nation full mobile number portability (MNP) along with providing the telecom industry the status of an infrastructure sector, which will help ease credit flow to companies for funding rollout plans or expansion activities. 

In April, Department of Telecom (DoT) in its note sent to the Cabinet had sought approval for decision on certain issued relating to the introduction of Unified Licences regime which is vital for telecom companies whose licences have been cancelled by Supreme Court on February 2 and new companies planning to make investment in India.

DoT will start issuing new licences once the policy and Unified Licences are approved by the Cabinet. After getting new licences, telecom companies will be able to run their services based on the infrastructure available with them, but for mobile telephony the companies will need spectrum to provide services.