Top five telecom honchos met the top ministers of the government including Telecom Minister Kapil Sibal also, to concern the Trai’s auction proposals, but being disappointed with no results, they decided to step up with a possible 100 per cent hike in mobile tariffs.
Their step is a warning for the government as if the recommendations of Telecom Regulatory Authority of India (Trai) are implemented; then there will be definite 100% hike in tariffs, instead of 30 %.
Declaring a joint plan of telecoms, Sanjay Kapoor, chief executive officer (India and South Asia), Bharti Airtel said, “There will be almost 100 per cent hike in tariffs if the current recommendations of Trai are implemented, result in network losses in thousands of villages.”
“It is still at the recommendation stage. It will be too early to say if we would participate in the auction process or not. But if the reserve prices are so high, it will not be possible for us to take part in the auction. The recommendations are flawed,” Kapoor further told reporters.
Earlier from the meeting, they o had gathered under the banner of Cellular Operators Association of India (COAI) and asked govt. not to approve the regulator’s proposal under which reserved price are too high as Rs.3,622 crore for one megahertz (MHz) of pan-India spectrum, 10 times more than 2G licences banded with 4.4 MHz spectrum in 2008.
Trai recommended that a minimum of five Mhz spectrum should be allotted or we can say for 1,800 MHz band, operators will pay Rs.18,000 crore, that has totally opposed by telecom bosses and requested to reduce by about 80 per cent on auction all available spectrum.
Completely denial the Trai’s claim that firms not do anything to raise penetration in rural areas, Kapoor cleared that Rs.34,000 crore has served by firms in 2010-2011 to the exchequer in addition to revenues generated by 3G and BWA auction.
One thing is clear that, if TRAI’s auction proposal accepted, there will be huge job loss as result of prolonged litigations and disputes in the sector. Regulator should fixed price after analyzing the market and make possible as per basic norm of NTP (National Telecom Policy) 2012 that is required to go hand with hand in right spirit.
