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Government Committed to Boost the Telecom Sector

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PCQ Bureau
New Update

Union Minister for HRD, Communications & IT and Law & Justice Mr. Kapil Sibal said today that a combination of liberal M&A and FDI policies will facilitate the required investments, and spur renewed activity in the telecommunication sector.

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Speaking at the CII National Telecom Summit 2013, organized in partnership with Department of Telecommunications, the minister remarked that "industry and government need to empower the common man through affordable services, data and devices". He also stressed on the urgent need to establish an indigenous fab facility in the country.

Mr. M.F. Farooqui, Chairman Telecom Commission and Secretary, DoT reiterated the Government's resolve to collaboratively address all constraining issues with the industry, through dialog. "We are also hoping to issue M&A guidelines within the next two months and Unified Guidelines in next few days", he added.

Dr. Rahul Khullar, Chairman TRAI was forthright in his views on problems facing the industry. He also emphasized on the critical need to use telecom infrastructure for public service in the fields of disaster management, financial inclusion and digital transactions, in the long term.

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Building further on expected data growth, Mr. Kiran Karnik, Chairman, CII National Committee on Telecom & Broadband said that future possibilities will be opened up by broadband, leading to widespread impact in the fields of education, health, financial inclusion, skills and training and thanked DoT for creating Joint Working Group on Broadband on CII request. This is chaired by Mr Kiran Karnik with Co-chairman Ms Rita Teotia, Additional Secretary, DoT.

Kicking off the session, Mr. Chandrajit Banerjee, Director General CII, welcomed the FDI move and the expected M&A regulations, and emphasized that prompt implementation of NTP 2012 will being the sector back on track.

Mr. Kapil Sibal also released an CII -AT. Kearney white paper on "Serving India's Digital Consumer", on the occasion. Mr. Mohit Rana, Partner, A.T. Kearney said that delivering to expectations of the 600 million ‘digital customers' in 2020 will require operators to develop new capabilities and ecosystem partnerships. The government needs to provide adequate spectrum at market relevant prices, which will bring back capital investments in the sector.

The summit with theme "Building communications: Accelerating development" was attended by representatives from government, leaders from the Indian telecom, IT and electronics industry including Samsung, Qualcomm, EMC2, ATC, BSNL and NEC, and focused on growth opportunities in telecom business and necessary imperatives to carve out a sustainable growth roadmap.

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