TRAI Seeks Industry Opinion on Ease of Doing Telecom Business

Planning to iron out all the hurdles in doing telecom business in India, the sector regulator on Tuesday sought comments from industry stakeholders.

In a paper 'Ease of doing Telecom Business in India', the stakeholders have been requested to provide inputs with detailed explanation and justification by April 11, 2017. The Telecom Regulatory Authority of India (TRAI) will analyse them and, if required, take further necessary action for simplification of processes.

"The Authority is of the opinion that various processes that a telecom licensee is required to go through, should be simplified and combined to the extent possible to economise on efforts on part of the telecom service providers (TSPs) as well as the government," the sector regulator said in a statement.

"Therefore, it is important to identify the bottlenecks, obstacles or hindrances that are making it difficult to do telecom business in India and thus, require regulatory intervention," it added.

The TRAI mentioned that some of the processes that could be reviewed for ease of doing business are - matters related to unified licence; spectrum allotment and use; provision of telecom services using satellite media and merger and acquisition policy.

"In addition, there can be processes in other areas which may be requiring simplification. The stakeholders are requested to identify such areas of concern and review the existing processes and suggest mechanisms that ease the business activity," said the statement.