'Reliance Had Wrongly Interpreted The Law'

The telecom minister doesn't mince words while talking on any controversial issue. Here he takes on private operators, TRAI, Arun Shourie and, of course, Reliance.

Updated on: 7 February 2024 7:00 pm

He became a known figure after he launched an offensive against Reliance Infocomm. But telecom minister Dayanidhi Maran doesn't mince words while talking on any controversial issue. In this interview with Arindam Mukherjee, he takes on private operators, TRAI, Arun Shourie and, of course, Reliance. Excerpts:

What is the government doing about Reliance Infocomm's call re-routing system?

There's a strong demand from the industry that Access Deficit Charge (ADC) should go. But any reduction would hit BSNL.

What's the status of Sun TV's DTH venture? It was trying to rope in Star...

There's a lot of heartburn among operators on TRAI's recommendations on Spectrum allocation. They feel it'll suit select players. What's the course of action now?

Has any decision been taken on the MTNL-BSNL merger after the ICICI report?

Roaming charges have always been a contentious issue. Recently operators reduced it by 33 per cent. But is that enough?

BSNL's broadband started with a bang but seems to have slowed down.

International bandwidth is crucial in broadband but neither BSNL nor MTNL have it.

You have said that telecom manufacturing worth $800 million would happen in India this year. Nokia, Elcoteq and LG have firmed their plans. Who else is coming?

We have really missed out on this account. We should have insisted on manufacturing earlier. PSUs BSNL and MTNL have realised now that they need good service back-ups and are insisting now that radio base stations—the most important structure—should now be manufactured in India. So all manufacturers are now willing to come and set up manufacturing units here. BSNL has opened a tender no other country can match. Manufacturers cannot ignore this. Nokia will start making their handsets in the first quarter and also base stations soon. Ericsson has decided to make their base stations here. Nortel is seriously looking at it. Elcoteq's plant has started. Alcatel will start their Mankapur plant and is looking at plants at Naini, Rae Bareli and j&k. I want to make India the favoured manufacturing hub.

We have reached a respectable level of phone penetration. What is next?

Today we have 100 million subscribers with a teledensity of about 10. We have set a target of 250 million subscribers in the next three years. That will take our teledensity to 22-23 per cent. We are moving in that direction. This year, mobile phones overtook fixed lines. About 53 million lines were added by the mobile sector. And public sector contribution to that was only 20 per cent. That's because they were late starters and came to the business late, for reasons best known to the previous government. They have been asked to start business only in rural India and were not allowed to start very aggressively in the urban areas. Now the focus is on the remaining 150 million, of which BSNL-MTNL should put 80 million.

There is a feeling that the conditions for fdi in telecom were hampering inflows. What proposals have you sent to the finance ministry to correct this?

We wanted to ensure there were no discrepancies. Some clarifications were sought on whether Indian banks can be taken as financial institutions, as some have foreign investment. We also looked at Indian shares, specially from nris. We want it to be a fail-proof system.

Any relook at the Postal Services Amendment Bill?

We have asked KPMG to look at the issue. Their report will come in three months. I am looking at a total revamp to make postal services profitable. I want to develop the post office on the pco model and make it a multi-point service window for government services.

What's being done about PC penetration?

We are working on a low-cost PC. A committee looking into this has given us its report. We will work with the finance ministry on incentives. I want this to be a national programme. We also want to enable Indian languages on PCs because less than 5 per cent Indians speak English. We have released 120 Tamil fonts and will release 500 Hindi fonts by June 15 and cover all 22 official languages in six months. All this will be available free.