Prasad talks tough to telcos again

Union communications and information technology minister Ravi Shankar Prasad on Saturday said he would remain tough on the issue of frequent call drops and poor service quality .

"While I applaud telecom operators for spreading mobile services in the nook and corner of the country, I am equally concerned that quality of service must be maintained. I will do a lot of tough talking to make them understand the problem. Now, they are responding," he said. Speaking at the annual general meeting of industry chamber Federation of Indian Chambers of Commerce and Industry (Ficci), Prasad shared official data that showed that private telecom operators have installed some 29,000 mobile sites across the country while the state-owned BSNL added 4,144 new sites in April-November 2015.

"Lots of initiatives, they are taking. I will continue to be tough. That's an obligation they (telecom operators) have to perform," Prasad said, in unequivocal terms.

The minister also defended telecom regulator Trai when a Ficci representative suggested that the "regulator should not be a controller".

The industry recently put up a legal challenge to the norms laid down by Trai that mandated service providers to compensate users Re 1 for up to three call drops a day.

"If the regulator or the department insists on a particular quality of service, you cannot escape that obligation by pointing finger. If service quality is good, I am the first person to stand with them," Prasad said.

Speaking about revival of the postal department he said he was keen to push the postal department in the banking scenario. "There was a lot of opposition, but we pushed for it and RBI has given in-principle approval," Prasad said.

Referring to the turnaround, the minister said the parcel business of the postal department was in the red in 2013-14, which in 2014-15 grew to 37 per cent. "Till November-end, the parcel revenue has risen to 119 per cent. They have done a business of Rs 1,000 crore in the last 7-8 months," he added.

Talking about receiving electronics manufacturing proposals of about Rs 1.2 lakh crore under the current set-up, Prasad made a mention of a scheme to set up BPOs in small towns, which has received interest from 78 companies.