The Hindu : National : No changes in telecom policy for new players

Online edition of India's National Newspaper
Wednesday, Oct 17, 2007
ePaper

National

National

No changes in telecom policy for new players

Sandeep Joshi

NEW DELHI: There is no question of changing the telecom policy to accommodate new players.

The existing criteria and recommendations made by the Telecom Regulatory Authority of India will be applicable for granting licence to them, Communications and Information Technology Minister A. Raja said here on Tuesday.

The existing norms would be applied for allocation of spectrum to the new and existing operators, he said speaking to presspersons at the curtain-raiser to ‘India Telecom 2007’, which is to be held in Delhi in December.

Spectrum shortage

On shortage of spectrum and delay by the defence forces in vacating airwaves to allow telecom companies to expand their services, Mr. Raja said he would meet National Security Advisor M. K. Narayanan on Wednesday seeking early vacation of spectrum. Mr. Narayanan is the Chairman of the Committee constituted to look into the complex issue of spectrum.

Growing sector

Speaking at the function, Mr. Raja said India now had the fastest growing telecom sector adding more than 70 lakh subscribers every month and it had almost reached the figure of 25 crore subscribers, three months ahead of the target date.

While the growing market encouraged global telecom players to set up manufacturing facilities in India, there was a lot of scope for adopting the technology and undertaking further indigenous value addition to meet day-to-day needs of the common man and India-specific requirements.

Centres of Excellence (CoEs) for telecom were being established in public-private partnership mode in the topmost academic institutions.

On the occasion, two memoranda of undertaking were signed, one between IIM-Ahmedabad, Idea Cellular and the Department of Telecom and the other between IIT-Kharagpur, Vodafone Essar and the DoT.

Five CoEs

The remaining five CoEs would be set up in the first half of 2008.

At another function, Mr. Raja gave away the “Bharat Sanchar Seva Padak” to meritorious employees of Bharat Sanchar Nigam Limited.

He urged BSNL employees to improve tele-density levels which lagged behind several Asian countries.

Printer friendly page
Send this article to Friends by E-Mail

National