Nivedita Mookerji explains why a timely rollout of 5G may not be easy in India.
The policy was part of the Aatmanirbhar Bharat package announced by Sitharaman in May 2020 as a coherent policy where all sectors would be opened for private sector participation.
In a first, the Comptroller and Auditor General's (CAG) officers reached out to several ministries in the last week of April as part of a confidence-boosting measure. The meeting brought the CAG officials and those from the ministries across the table to discuss the pain points in their relations. CAG of India Girish Chandra Murmu took this novel step because of growing tensions between those audited and the auditor.
Telecom Secretary Siddartha Behura is learnt to have made a request to the Prime Minister's Office to convene a meeting that will include PMO, DoT, telecom regulator TRAI and finance secretary to resolve the controversy over spectrum allocation and pricing. He said the department is in dialogue with the ministry of finance regarding certain issues relating to guidelines for auction of 3G spectrum and pricing of 2G spectrum.
The proposal may provide relief to the tune of Rs 9,000 crore to service providers.
The Securities and Exchange Board of India's (Sebi's) technical advisory committee has been mandated to probe the trading halt at National Stock Exchange (NSE) and fix accountability. The committee after a detailed examination would send its findings and recommendations to whole-time member Madbhi Puri Buch, to decide the future course of action, said two people in the know. The panel, which is currently chaired by Ashok Jhunjhunwala of IIT Madras, is learnt to have sought an explanation over two key issues from NSE: One on the effectiveness of interoperability as it was unable to migrate the trading positions; the other on laxity in switching it to the disaster recovery site.
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Moving quickly towards ending a retrospective tax dispute with a firm that gave India its largest oilfield, the government has accepted Cairn Energy PLC's undertakings which would allow for the refund of taxes, sources said. Meeting the requirements of the new legislation that scraps levy of retrospective taxation, the company had earlier this month given required undertakings indemnifying the Indian government against future claims as well as agreeing to drop any legal proceedings anywhere in the world. The government has now accepted this and issued Cairn a so-called Form-II, committing to refund the tax collected to enforce the retrospective tax demand, two sources with direct knowledge of the development said.
He said that the telecom ministry is in discussions with finance ministry and GSM operators to work out new charges for additional spectrum beyond 6.2 MHz. The minister also said his ministry is also talking to finance ministry on the issue of relaxing borrowing norms for aspiring 3G spectrum bidders.
Against the backdrop of the finance ministry note on 2G spectrum pricing, Dravida Munnetra Kazhagam, a key United Progressive Alliance ally, on Thursday maintained that the stand taken by jailed former telecom minister A Raja on the issue has been 'vindicated'.
Now that almost 10 infrastructure ministries have submitted a fresh list of their core infrastructure assets, the government has realised it stands to make much more money from asset monetisation than previously thought. Two persons in the government said it stood to garner over 30 per cent more than the earlier estimates of Rs 2.5 trillion over the next four years under the National Monetisation Pipeline (NMP). The NMP, which is being prepared by Niti Aayog, is in the advanced stages of finalisation and is expected to be unveiled in August.
The telecom industry, with a cumulative debt of around Rs 2,75,000 crore (Rs 2,750 billion), has been mired in various controversies, besides facing intense competition, low tariffs and falling margins.
Cash-strapped telco Vodafone Idea's proposal for investment of up to Rs 15,000 crore through foreign direct investment (FDI) has been approved by the Union government, according to officials. A top-level group, comprising representatives from the ministries of home affairs, external affairs, finance and commerce and industry, took the decision. The nod, which is an enabling provision, would help the financially-stressed company raise funds to pay up some of its dues linked to adjusted gross revenue (AGR), reduce debts and use the money for operational expenses.
Billionaire Gautam Adani on Tuesday did an hour-long session of yoga exercises in the open air as he led corporate India to join the International Day of Yoga celebrations. Several public and private sector companies held yoga sessions at their offices to promote the adoption of exercise in daily routines to stay fit and healthy. Adani, chairman of logistics-to-energy conglomerate Adani Group, and his wife Priti, who heads the Adani Foundation, "participated with more than 1,000 members of the Adani Parivaar team to celebrate health, mindfulness and meditation," the group said in a statement. The session was held at a football ground at Adani Shantigram in Ahmedabad. Several other business leaders tweeted pictures of their yoga sessions.
Restoration of road and tele-communication network in the Kashmir Valley, ravaged by floods, will take three to five days. The Centre has directed free flow of transport via Manali and Leh to Srinagar, the only available surface network, a top central government official said on Monday.
The revenue department, sources said, will pursue the tax demand along with accrued interest and penalty.
The government is looking to sell shares of Reliance Industries (RIL) held through Specified Undertaking of the Unit Trust of India (SUUTI) and is soon going to appoint an intermediary to manage it. The plan is to sell about 8 lakh shares of RIL that will help the government garner around Rs 180 crore. The Department of Investment and Public Asset Management (DIPAM) will appoint an intermediary that will act as a custodian of these shares. The intermediary, based on its market analysis, will offload these shares at the best price, said an official. A final approval on the proposal is expected soon.
Supreme Court ruling on Presidential Reference a booster, it says.
VIL pegs dues at Rs 21,533 cr, less than half of DoT estimate. During a meeting with Vodafone Group CEO Nick Read, Telecom Minister Ravi Shankar Prasad made it clear that the government is against a monopoly in the telecom sector, and wants Vodafone Idea to survive and remain invested in India.
Changing tracks helps. But, not taking the beaten path isn't always helpful. This is the story of two of India's biggest privatisations - Air India and Bharat Petroleum (BPCL). Nearly two decades after the last privatisation, a landmark divestment concluded this year when the loss-making national carrier Air India was sold to the Tatas.
A panel headed by Economic Affairs secretary Arvind Mayaram had suggested FDI limit be raised to 49 per cent in almost all sectors through the automatic route.
A special court on Thursday acquitted all accused in the 2G spectrum allocation scam cases. The scam relates to the granting of 2G spectrum licence allocations in 2007-08 which caused, according to a report by the Comptroller and Auditor General of India, a loss of Rs 1.76 lakh crore. Here is a detailed timeline of how the case came to light and how it has progressed over the years:
BSNL is providing telecom services in remote parts of the country and maintaining 17,000 to 18,000 exchanges, incurring Rs 3,000 to Rs 4,000 crore losses every year. Otherwise, these villages will be cut off.
The Department of Telecom has asked the Group of Ministers on telecom spectrum to direct the Ministry of Defence to immediately release 20 Mhz spectrum in the 1,800 Mhz band for mobile phone operators.
The finance ministry is likely to favour an approach that would take into account the payment capabilities of telecom companies while deciding the price and process for spectrum auction this year.
TCS was the top gainer in the Sensex pack, rising around 4 per cent, followed by ONGC, ICICI Bank, HDFC Bank, Dr Reddy's, HDFC and HCL Tech. NSE Nifty advanced 76.65 points to 14,581.45.
A finance ministry official said Vodafone had threatened arbitration against something that had not happened. He said the UK-based telecom company was presuming it might happen.
After lower proceeds from 2G spectrum auctioning, economists question if government can meet the fiscal deficit target.
PowerGrid was the top gainer in the Sensex pack, rallying over 4 per cent, followed by NTPC, UltraTech Cement, Tech Mahindra, Reliance Industries and IndusInd Bank.
Devas Multimedia has seized $87,457.47 cash that ISRO's commercial arm Antrix Corporation held in the US as it looked to enforce a $1.2 billion compensation it had won over a cancelled satellite deal, its lawyer said on Wednesday. Devas Multimedia America Inc had sought seizure of $145,000 but the actual recovery was $87,457.47 (a little less than Rs 70 lakh). This came after it secured a favourable order from the Eastern District Court of Virginia, Matthew D McGrill said.
A group of officials from the National Treasury and the South African Reserve Bank ) are in India to meet officials from the finance ministry, Reserve Bank and market regulator Securities and Exchange Board of India to discuss regulatory matters related to the deal.
The proposals, to be based on the recommendations of the Shome panel, are likely to be introduced in the Finance Bill to be presented by Finance Minister P Chidambaram in the Budget for 2012-13.
Telecom Minister A Raja has been indicted by the CAG in the 2G spectrum scam, which resulted in a loss of about Rs 1,70,000 crore.
Telecom companies have been desperately waiting for a bailout package from the government after a Supreme Court order put their statutory liabilities at Rs 1.47 lakh crore.
Within hours of reports that Mukherjee himself was at the receiving end of such calls, Raja activated his ministry to take steps against such calls that 'encroach' into the privacy of telecom consumers, an issue that has been haunting every single consumer despite the regulator Telecom Regulatory Authority of India's attempts to ban such a nuisance.
Earlier in the day, Cabinet secretary K M Chandrasekhar, who was heading the high-level committee to monitor vacation of spectrum by the defence forces, said revenues would get preference to timing for 3G auction.
The GST Council, headed by Finance Minister Nirmala Sitharaman and comprising representatives of all states and Union territories, will have its 37th meeting in Goa against the backdrop of economic growth hitting a six-year low of 5 per cent in the first quarter of the current fiscal.
In view of the foreign investment that would come into Bharti Airtel via the proposed share-swap and cash transaction arrangement, the finance ministry has asked DoT to ascertain more specific contents of the deal and advise the ministry on the same. In its letter, DEA has also said that the transaction would need to adhere to the sectoral cap as per the FDI policy as also specific telecom sector regulations.
The move could streamline capital flows and help finance current account deficit
In the aviation sector, 100 per cent FDI is allowed under automatic route for MRO (maintenance, repair, overhaul), ground handling, and aircraft purchase.
Faced with prospect of its assets across the globe being seized just like Pakistan and Venezuela, the government decided to scrap retrospective taxation but the international embarrassment could have been avoided had 'attached' shares of Britain's Cairn Energy Plc not been sold, according to tax and legal experts. On Thursday, the government introduced a Bill in Parliament to scrap the tax rule that gave the tax department power to go 50 years back and slap capital gains levies wherever ownership had changed hands overseas but business assets were in India. The 2012 legislation was used to levy a cumulative of Rs 1.10 lakh crore of tax on 17 entities, including UK telecom giant Vodafone, but substantial punitive action was taken only in the case of Cairn.
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