The Central government on Thursday has assured the telecom industry that the auction of spectrum in the future, too, would be conducted in a timely, fair and transparent way.

Speaking here on the ‘Digital Bharat 2015’ conference, Minister for Communications and IT, Ravi Shankar Prasad, said: “The road map will be fully disclosed in advance so that the industry can put its act together in a planned manner.”

The last spectrum auction, the biggest so far that ended in March, fetched around ₹1.10 lakh crore to the government.

The Minister also launched an FICCI-EY report — ‘Speeding Ahead on the Telecom and Digital Economy Highway’ — which recommends to bring handsets under provisions of ‘Goods of Special Importance’ under the Central Excise Tax Act, 1956, thus, capping the maximum value added tax levied by States at 5 per cent.

The report also recommended eliminating or reducing Universal Service Obligation Fund to one to three per cent.

Looking at the way mobile phone and internet users’ penetration is growing, Prasad said there should be more manufacturing of electronics in India. He also said there needs more skilled manpower for doing so too. “Internet penetration is not that good right now and our objective is to reach 500 internet users in next three years. Skill development at the ground level is very important for that,” he said.

Optical fibre network Therefore, the government is also relying big time on the National Optical Fibre Network (NOFN) and has asked the private players to participate in the project.

“I have told my officials to work out a particular arrangement, can we release certain brown fibre or grey fibre or whatever names it is called for operation by these private players for distribution in rural areas,” he said.

On the improvement of quality and call drops in the telecom sector, Prasad said both State-run BSNL and private players need to improve. “A country of the size of India for whom the world is expecting so much, needs to address these areas of gaps.”

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