The government is hopeful that within three months the picture will be clear about what needs to be done to revive the health of telecom sector in India.
The task of the inter-ministerial group (IMG) is to examine systemic issues affecting viability and repayment capacity of the telecom sector and furnish recommendations for resolution of stressed assets. It is expected to submit its recommendations within three months.
The group, comprising officials from the finance and telecom ministries, was set up after concerns about the financial stress in the industry.
Telecom companies Bharti Airtel, Vodafone India, Idea cellular, Reliance Jio, Reliance Communications, Tata Teleservices, Telenor, BSNL and MTNL have all met the IMG and discussed the state of the sector.
Telecom Secretary Aruna Sundararajan told BTVi in an interview that the telecom sector in India had gone through ups and downs.
She further added that India went from a situation where we had a monopoly operator from the government, then a set of players came in and then that set of players was enlarged. Then, there was a situation where because of the intense competition, India ctually had large number of players, now it is going through a phase of consolidation.
By Baishakhi Dutta
