“The competition in telecom sector is coming down day by bay due to consolidation”, said Sunil Mittal on October 5. Bharti Airtel, India’s largest telecom company is waiting for the report by a high level inter- ministerial panel and the government on the stress in telecom sector where the competition is going down.
A debt load of Rs 4.6 lakh crore on the telecom sector is one of its causes. The apex body of the country ‘The Telecom Commission’ approves to extend the time to pay the debt from 10years to 16 years. In addition to it an inter- ministerial group was created earlier this year to suggest some measures in order to improve the telecom sector’s condition. The report of IMG was later submitted before the telecom commission.
In a conference, Mittal said that the vision of Digital India may be strong but for its implication, the state need to show the same level of urgency as well. He further added that “It is not percolating down to the system. At the states, same level of urgency is not visible. There has to be some programme in the government where they match the vision right down to the gram panchayats, municipal bodies, state governments and create that urgency that this is one pillar for growth in India which is so important that they must pay attention “ . He said that in spite of the strong vision of government in telecom sector, High demand in the market by consumers, there is a big lag from what they want achieve in India.
The improvement in technology from 3G to 4G and 5G would only lead to exponential but not incremental growth in the country.
There is a constant increase in the deployment of the infrastructure.Mittal’s company itself spent USD 3 billion this year only on network capex unlike 1.5-2 billion in other years.
India will not be behind others in any case. They are investing and others too need to invest for the same.