Telcos have indicated that rates will have to be raised, as higher volumes alone will not suffice to meet the higher costs.
Kejriwal said it is his government's basic commitment to provide electricity to all, even those who are poor and cannot afford to pay.
He will call for 'an end to the politics of resistance and retribution', a senior aide said.
Bharti Airtel chairman Sunil Mittal on Wednesday said the regulatory regime needs to be simple to avoid fresh litigations in the telecom sector, asserting that collaboration among competing players, lower duties and reduction in spectrum pricing will help unleash the full potential of the industry. The telecom czar noted that the "temperature" of the industry needs to be lowered when it comes to litigations and appealed to the government to look into the matter. The timely reforms that were announced brought in cheer and heightened comfort for all the active players in the sector, Mittal said and urged the industry counterparts to focus on building the next wave of connectivity in the run-up to 5G and beyond.
For the PMO this is urgent as the Digital India framework would depend on how the telecom companies perform. It is also linked to the proposed auction of 5G airwaves.
Huma Qureshi, Taapsee Pannu, Pulkit Samrat, Renuka Shahane, Bijoy Nambiar are among several Bollywood personalities to express concern over huge electricity bills.
The meet will see Goyal batting for structural reforms at the WTO, where India has repeatedly called for reforms, especially in the dispute resolution mechanism that has effectively been held hostage by the US.
China on Tuesday announced a major policy change for its crisis-ridden power sector by allowing coal-fired power plants to charge their industrial and commercial customers market-driven prices. The National Development and Reform Commission (NDRC) of China said the electricity generated by coal-fired plants would discover price in market trading "in an orderly manner" from October 15. This is being done to pass on the high costs of coal and is being held up as the boldest reform in the Chinese power sector.
Indian telecom sector has registered a phenomenal growth and has become second largest telephone network in the world after China.
Indian airlines are expected to post a consolidated loss of $4.1 billion this fiscal, similar to what they are estimated to have incurred in 2020-21, taking the total losses of two years to around $8 billion as a result of the pandemic so far, aviation consultancy and research firm CAPA said on Thursday. In a report, CAPA expects domestic passenger traffic to be around 80-95 million in 2021-22 as against 52.5 million in the previous financial year. However, despite this growth, it will be well below than around 140 million passenger volumes recorded in 2019-20, CAPA said in the report. This projection of the traffic volume does not take into account the anticipated third wave of the pandemic, it added.
Incoming charges while roaming have been a hindrance to worry-free usage
The Telecom Regulatory Authority of India around mid of this month decided to continue with forbearance in tariff regime that gives freedom to decide on call and other services rates.
Discoms will not only be penalised for undue outages, they will not be able to bill you for losses.
The government has set a revenue target of Rs 45,471 crore from communication services in FY15.
Connecting Maharashtra, Goa and Mumbai telecom circles without roaming charges, Airtel on Wednesday announced a 'One Maharashtra' scheme for its pre-paid and post paid customers in these circles.
For operators, occasions such as Holi, Diwali, Christmas, New Year and Independence Day spell an increase in SMSes and voice traffic and are, hence, treated as 'black out' days where they charge slightly higher SMS rates, irrespective of the tariff plan subscribed.
The government on Thursday cleared the proposed Bill for setting up the Airport Economic Regulatory Authority.
Macroeconomic management is usually a lot more comfortable with lower fiscal deficits. The sooner we get there, the better for the economy, says former Chief Economic Adviser to the Government of India Shankar Acharya.
According to sources, DoT has been asked to prepare a matrix of various levels of reserve price and spectrum usage charge at every Rs 1,000 crore (Rs 10 billion) difference in descending order and the impact that would have on tariffs for end-consumer and the revenue accrued to the government.
The process of switching off the 3G network has already started with Kolkata in the recent-concluded June quarter. By September, the shutdown will be affected in 6-7 more circles and between December and March the entire 3G network would be shut down.
The revised policy, which has come into effect since last week, means passengers who are looking to skip the long queues at airports will have to shell out a fee for it. For IndiGo, the lowest seat fees is Rs 100 while for SpiceJet it is Rs 99.
The Department of Telecommunications (DoT) has proposed to simplify the country's telecom landscape. It has suggested one tariff for each licence holder across the country, all-India mobile number portability and doing away with roaming charges.
Vodafone 3G plans now start from Rs 25 for 25 MB data usage and go up to Rs 1,599 for 12 GB data usage.
Vodafone Idea, the country's third largest telecom operator, on Wednesday reported a staggering Rs 73,878 crore of net loss in fiscal ended March 2020 -- the highest ever by any Indian firm -- after it provisioned for Supreme Court-mandated statutory dues. The firm, which has to pay Rs 51,400 crore dues after the apex court ordered the non-telecom revenues to be included in calculating statutory dues, said the liability has "cast significant doubt on the company's ability to continue as a going concern".
The Trai order is expected to change how consumers pay for cable or DTH services. This will result in disruption within the TV viewing market.
If India wants to become a globally competitive manufacturing hub, it will have to rethink the notion that the traditional SMEs will form the manufacturing backbone, argues Prosenjit Datta.
The company will charge around Rs 100 per month for its services, the lowest in the country for browsing the Net over mobile phones, compared with the existing tariffs of around Rs 500 per month charged by other service providers.
As all airlines have raised carriage charges, private couriers have increased their tariffs 8-20 per cent. India Post, on the other hand, has not tinkered with its tariffs at all. As a result, India Post's tariff is 70 per cent cheaper for domestic destinations and 30 per cent cheaper for international destinations.
The levy will be 10%, with an abatement of 50%, effectively bringing down the service tax levy to 5% on the tariff.
Telecom regulator TRAI has said private GSM operators were acting as a "cartel" against MTNL and BSNL and charging higher tariffs from customers for calls terminating in the networks of the two state-run companies.
TRAI removed network interconnection charges.
The company said with the pack, customers can access data at Rs 10 per MB on international roaming while the base tariff is Rs 614.4 per MB. Outgoing voice calls to India can be made for Rs 40 per minute as compared to the base tariff of Rs 165 per minute.
Mukesh Ambani said, by March 2017, it will cover 90 per cent of India's population
Intensifying the ongoing tariff war, Tata Teleservices on Thursday announced half a paise per second tariff for domestic long distance (STD) calls for its CDMA prepaid users, making it cheaper than locals calls.
RJio will further add bottomline pressures on the already struggling telcos that will ultimately be forced to consolidate
Bharti Airtel, 30 per cent owned by Singapore's SingTel, also announced a drastic cut in roaming rates under which incoming roaming calls will be charged at Re 1 a minute compared with the existing Rs 1.75.
In its letter Voda Idea has warned that it is not in a sound financial state, and added that it would be in a position to meet its liabilities only if the government initiates steps including allowing set-offs for GST credit accumulated so far, and permitting staggered mechanism for payment of balance amount of interest, penalty, and interest on penalty.
Over 60-70% of the guests at five-star hotels are foreigners. However, hotels say, if dollar remains at this level, the mix could change.
The decision of the Telecom Commission to approve in-flight connectivity won't just bring cheer to the chat-friendly passengers, but even more to the telecom industry facing severe financial stress, says Nivedita Mookerji.
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