Inter Ministerial Group and telecom companies to discuss the stressed health of telecom sector

The much-awaited meeting between the government and the telecom companies to evolve a resolution to the stressed health of the sector was held here on 22 June. Representatives of telecom companies Bharti Airtel, Idea Cellular, Reliance Jio and Reliance Communications met Communications Minister Manoj Sinha and Telecom Secretary Aruna Sundararajan besides other government officials in the ministry. Among the industrialists, Anil Ambani of Reliance Communications, Sunil Mittal of Bharti Airtel and Mahendra Nahata of Reliance Jio were present in the meeting. They were not immediately available for comment. Initially, the company chiefs met Sinha separately. The government has set up an **inter-ministerial group** (IMG) which is holding hearings with all the stakeholders. The group members have already met the main telecom companies, including MTNL and BSNL. The task of the inter-ministerial group (IMG) is to examine systemic issues affecting viability and repayment capacity of the telecom sector and furnish recommendations for resolution of stressed assets. It is expected to submit its recommendations within three months. The group, comprising officials from the finance and telecom ministries, was set up after top banks expressed concern about financial stress in the industry. Concern over low interconnection usage charges, high spectrum usage fee and doing away with Universal Service Obligation Fund were the main issues that telecom operators highlighted to the inter-ministerial group (IMG) in the last **meeting** on 16 June. (Disclosure: Reliance Industries Ltd. is the sole beneficiary of Independent Media Trust which controls Network18 Media & Investments Ltd)