NEW DELHI: Disappointed with Cabinet decision
on fixing minimum or base price at Rs 14,000 crore for spectrum, the telecom
industry today said the recommendations will prove to be "regressive"
for the sector's growth and that operators would be forced to raise tariffs for
consumers.
GSM operators
body COAI, which counts Bharti
Airtel, Vodafone and Idea
Cellular among its members, said the move will
impact tariffs by 30 paise per minute on an average.
"It will continue to have an impact on
the tariffs to the extent of about 30 paisa per minute. The effect on finances
is that an amount of Rs 3,20,000 crore of additional debt that will have to be
laid on the industry," COAI said.
Also, the banking industry itself has said
that it would be near impossible to continue to fund this type of a demand for
investment funds, he added.
"So the only thing that this is going to
balance is perhaps the budget of the country if at all even that. So we really
don't see any benefit that this decision does to the industry," Mathews
said.
CDMA operators body AUSPI agreed. "It
(reserve price) is still very high. It will definitely affect the
tariffs," Association Of Unified Telecom Providers Of India Secretary
General SC Khanna said.
KPMG Executive
Director Jaideep Ghosh also said the pricing is on the higher side and that tariffs
for consumers, which have gone up recently, would continue to "firm
up".
The Cabinet, headed by Prime Minister Manmohan
Singh, has decided to fix the reserve price at Rs 14,000 crore for 5 Mhz of
airwaves as against around Rs 18,000 crore recommended by sectoral regulator
Trai for spectrum
auction.
The Supreme Court had, in February this year,
cancelled 122 licences issued by the then Telecom Minister A Raja in 2008 and
asked the government to conduct fresh auctions by August 31.
But this deadline may not be met and the
government may approach the apex court for extension of the timeline.
Source : The Economic
Times, August 3, 2012
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