Govt plans to review M&A norms in telecom

The government will review the merger and acquisition guidelines for the telecom sector and a committee has been formed to look into issues concerning the sector, IT and Communications Minister Ravi Shankar Prasad said on Wednesday.

"I have already constituted a committee headed by the telecom secretary to revisit guidelines... I have instructed the secretary to look into issues of stakeholders and if there is a need to revisit merger and acquisition guidelines, do that," Prasad said during a session on digitalisation and innovation at the India Economic Summit. The committee held its first meeting on Wednesday, he said.

Telecom players have been pushing for a relaxation of M&A rules and a framework to buy and sell spectrum.

"New spectrum sharing and trading guidelines will be in place," Prasad said.

"We are going to have new spectrum auction also. We are in discussion with the Minister of Defence for the release of extra spectrum. We want to make the whole regime transparent, with the twin objective of growth and consumer interest in mind," he said.

Prasad said his government is pushing electronics manufacturing in a big way and is granting substantial incentives for cluster manufacturing. India is now importing electronics good worth $100 billion year and the import bill is likely to cross $400 billion by 2020, he added. "When we say Make in India, we mean that foreign companies should make in India for India, get incentives and also export".

Stressing on the need to expand the reach of broadband in the country, he said broadband needs to penetrate the way television has reached every nook and corner of the country.

He also said that he wants his government to be available to every citizen on a mobile phone, adding that around 360 facilities are today available on mobile. These include rail ticket booking, air ticket booking and banking services.