No cartel, but Trai ready for probe if govt seeks it

In a strong but cautious reply to Communications and Information Technology Minister Dayanidhi Maran's comments on Wednesday, the Telecom Regulatory Authority of India (Trai) today ruled out the presence of any cartel in the long-distance telephony sector. Trai said it would look into the issue, if asked by the government.

Stung by the allegation of cartelisation levelled against them, telecom majors Bharti, Reliance Infocomm and VSNL began consultations, presumably to work out a joint response. The spokespersons of these companies declined to comment on the charges made by Maran.

But one of the operators said on the condition of anonymity that such remarks from Maran were "demoralising" and "uncalled for". The DoT was penalising the players for making huge investments in the NLD and ISD segments and this would affect future investments as well, the operator said.

On Wednesday, Maran had accused the country's private long-distance operators (Bharti, Reliance Infocomm and VSNL) of forming a cartel and had ruled out any compensation to them in the wake of the government's decision to usher in a new regime for national and international long-distance licences.

Reliance Infocomm, Tatas-owned VSNL and Bharti had sought a compensation of Rs 2,805 crore from the government to allow new entrants into the sector. "The tariffs have gone down significantly in the last few years, and if there was any cartel, it would not have come down by so much," Trai Chairman Pradip Baijal told reporters today.

"The role of the regulator and the government is to prevent cartels being formed and there are many ways of doing it," Baijal said.

Baijal also pointed out that in a bid to induce competition into the national and international long-distance sectors, the regulator had recommended the introduction of a carrier access code, to enable customers to choose their long-distance service provider.

Dismissing Maran's remarks that "the regulator must stop picking on BSNL", he said that this could not be possible as all decisions of Trai were "appealable". "I am not short of appeals. There have been many appeals that have gone to the TDSAT," he said.