Telecom stocks gain as cabinet approves relief package

Shares of four telecom services providers rose by 0.6% to 3.03% at 12:05 IST on BSE after the government approved relief package for the debt-ridden sector.

Tata Teleservices (Maharashtra) (up 3.03%), Reliance Communications (up 0.6%) and Idea Cellular (up 0.63%) edged higher. MTNL (down 0.72%) fell.

Bharti Airtel rose 0.84% after the company said that the meeting of board of directors of the company will be held on 12 March 2018, to consider enablement from board to opportunistically raise funds including by issuance of secured / unsecured, listed / unlisted, non-convertible debentures, bonds or such other similar debt instrument(s) either denominated in Indian rupees or in foreign currency. The announcement was made after market hours yesterday, 7 March 2018.

Telecom tower infrastructure provider Bharti Infratel rose 1.3%.

Meanwhile, the S&P BSE Sensex was up 134.03 points, or 0.41% at 33,167.12.

The Union Cabinet after market hours yesterday, 7 March 2018 approved two key measures in telecom sector to facilitate investments, consolidation in the sector and enhancing ease of doing business.

The measures include restructuring the deferred payment liabilities of spectrum auction of telecom service providers and revising the limit of the cap for spectrum holding for telecom service providers. The overall spectrum cap is revised from the current limit of 25% to 35%. The current intra-band cap is removed. Instead, there is a cap of 50% on the combined spectrum holding in the sub-1 GHz bands (700 MHz, 800 MHz and 900 MHz bands). There will be no cap for individual or combined spectrum holding in above 1 GHz band.

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