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Veeshal Bakshi
New Delhi, June 5: Two leading industry associations -- The Federation of Indian Chambers of Commerce & Industry (Ficci) and Cellular Operators Association of India (COAI) -- have sought Prime Minister Atal Behari Vajpayee's intervention for restraining the department of telecommunications (DoT) from taking any action against private operators till the attorney general submits his report and the new telecom policy is implemented.
In two separate letters to Vajpayee on Saturday, Ficci and COAI have stated that DoT should revoke termination of licences of Koshika Telecom and Aircel Digilink and restore connectivity of the national telecom network with the two cellular operators' networks pending satisfactory resolution of the new telecom policy initiatives.
"DoT has taken a unilateral action in disconnecting several cellular operators (Koshika and Aircel) in Uttar Pradesh, Bihar, Haryana, Rajasthan and Orissa. We are deeply depressed by this unwanted action. These actions show a total lack of concern forthe interest of the consumer and the industry," Ficci president Sudhir Jalan has stated in his letter.
Ficci has said that in the interest of continuation of the services to consumers and to avoid long-term litigation, operators may be allowed to continue with the service without termination of licence. "As per the terms of licence, they should be asked to deposit 30 per cent of their airtime revenues in an escrow account towards licence fee pending final resolution and implementation of the new telecom policy," the Ficci letter states.COAI has stated in its letter that consumers and cellular operators in the five states have been "greatly inconvenienced and deeply distressed by the precipitous action of DoT through disconnection of PSTN inter-connection and termination of cellular licence of Koshika and Aircel".
According to COAI, these actions show a "remarkable lack of sensitivity to the interest and concerns of the consumers and the industry and are against the spirit and intentions of theforward-looking new telecom policy".COAI has also sought Vajpayee's "urgent intervention" for a fair consideration of change of effective date of licence for different operators to compensate for documented delays in government clearances. The association has proposed that instead of going through the time-consuming and expensive process of examining each and every case, the government could consider a general change of effective date for circle cellular operators, which would be fully in consonance with the BICP's finding and recommendations as well as in line with DoT's proposal for a fourth round of tendering. Ficci feels that there should be a separation between licensing and service-provisions functions of DoT. "This has been agreed upon by all concerned. In fact, the separation has also been incorporated into the national telecom policy, 1999, which has suggested setting up of a department of services.
Copyright © 1999 Indian Express Newspapers (Bombay) Ltd.
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