Govt will take bold decision to rescue telecom sector: Report

In a bid, to rescue the telecom sector from financial woes, Telecom Minister Manoj Sinha has now said that the Government will not shy away from taking the bold decisions, PTI reported.

While the telecom sector is under a lot of stress due to increasing pressure after the entry of Reliance Jio and also with a debt of about Rs. 4.6 lakh crore,"An inter-ministerial group has been constituted to study the level of financial stress in the telecom sector and suggest remedial measures, the group is likely to submit its report within a fortnight," stated Manoj Sinha.

He said, "Once the report is with us, then based on the report we will take immediate action." "Government is not scared to take bold decisions." In fact, Sinha earlier has said that Government will intervene "at the right time in a right manner".To recall, research firm India Ratings and Research (Ind- Ra) has mentioned in its report that the Indian telecom industry has lost around 20 percent revenue due to free services by Reliance Jio.

Ind-Ra also says that the incumbent telcos are moving towards more bundling of voice and data plans in line with RJio's voice calling bundled with data. Blended average revenue per user (ARPUs) is slated to decline by 10 percent in FY18.

However, another report by Jefferies says that the growth of Reliance Jio subscriber base and its free offering till the end of fourth quarter of 2016-17, has led to an 11.7 percent year-on-year decline (8.5 percent quarter-on-quarter decline) in industry revenues.

It all started on September 5, 2016, when Reliance Jio started its 4G operations with the Welcome offer in which the company used to give unlimited data, voice, video calls and messaging access for three months and as expected, the whole telecom industry has shaken. In fact, the company has forced all telcos to change their tariff plans to retain their users.