Telecom minister to meet telcos and internet service providers on Tuesday

Jyotiraditya Scindia met with satcom, OEM and electronic makers on Monday

Telecom Minister Jyotiraditya Scindia will be holding meetings with telecom service providers, internet service providers and academicians on Tuesday to continue discussions on sectoral issues, sources said.

The meetings will be part of Scindia's interactions with the six new advisory groups formed by the Department of Telecommunications (DoT) to draw up a new agenda focused on growth and development.

Bharti Airtel CEO Gopal Vittal, HCL co-founder Ajai Chowdhry, NG Subramanium and RK Upadhyay of C-DOT are among those set to participate in the discussions.

Coming weeks before the government presents the national budget, telcos are set to raise the issue of exemptions on customs duty on certain telecom equipment, the demand for the universal service obligation fund (USOF) to be suspended till the existing corpus is exhausted, and for the license fee to be slashed to 1 per cent from the current 3 per cent, sources said.

On Monday, the Minister met with three of the seven advisory groups - satellite communications, electronics ecosystem and original equipment makers (OEMs).

Scindia said the meetings with the three advisory groups attempted to make a deep dive into the issues related to satcom, production linked incentives (PLI) and telecom equipment.

The first advisory meeting with the satcom stakeholders discussed areas of interventions to ensure higher penetration of reliable telecom services throughout the country. Scindia said 4-5 issues have been identified which will be taken up at the next stakeholder meeting in August.

The department is working on framing the terms of reference for satellite spectrum allocation, so that the Telecom Regulatory Authority of India can begin consultation with stakeholders.

Officials said it would clarify the methodology of allocation, the frequencies to be used, the pricing of spectrum, and the terms and conditions for satellite operators with regard to national security.

The meeting with private telecom electronics players focused on drawing up a charter for sectoral priorities to deliberations on expanding the Indian market. Scindia said this platform will form the bedrock of government-industry collaboration in the sector.

With an eye on quickly boosting export of telecom equipment, and incorporating more MSMEs into the telecom manufacturing sector, the government is planning to revamp the existing PLI scheme for the telecom sector, officials said. Funding for the expanded scheme may not be a challenge since the DoT has surplus funds of more than Rs 1,000 crore for the purpose, officials have pointed out.