How did we come to this pass? When Indian telecom migrated from a fixed, and unaffordably high, licence fee to licence fee as a share of revenue in 1999, telcos were shown a draft condition that said sector regulator Telecom Regulatory Authority of India<\/a> (Trai) would specify what kinds of revenue would be deemed shareable. When the actual licence was issued, the condition said a share of gross revenue. This went into dispute in 2003. Since then, NDA 1, UPA 1 and 2, and NDA 2 have pursued the licenser’s claim to a share of aggregate revenue, regardless of whether the revenue was derived from exercise of the telecom licence or not. In October 2019, the Supreme Court ruled that telcos must pay a share of their gross revenue, as that is what they signed on to. This judicial fixation on form over substance took telcos by surprise. They sought a review, which was dismissed, they pleaded for time to pay up, which has now been turned down.
Survival of a competitive telecom market, adoption of 5G, the future of digital India — all are up in the air. Only brave government policy can save Indian telecom. Another impossible thing? For the nation’s sake, we should hope not.
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