‘Will give NDA government a rating of 3.5 for telecom’

I would give the NDA government 3.5 out of 5 and the reason for that is there has been a fair amount of incremental improvement in the regulatory environment, for example, when it came to issues relating to licencing fees. The government has focused on improving the environment for the players, which, in turn, means that the consumers also benefit. The way UPI and fintech have grown, is largely because of the government’s support.

The gamechanger in the sector, I would argue is not necessarily the government’s doing but the industry’s doing. The game changer is the entry of Reliance Jio. It has had a major impact on the number of players in the market, the price of services as well as expansion of 4G and broadband. There have been controversies around Jio’s entry, but we are actually talking about the impact of its entry. For instance, once it was able to drastically cut prices, its competitors had no choice but to follow. The speed with which it expanded its 4G network gave no other option for its competitors. It made it less tenable for smaller players to continue in the market and so we saw the exit of players like Aircel, Videocon and others.

I believe the market needs to be much more liberalised and for that there is a need for a major overhaul of the licencing process. Also, I think we need to provide better incentives for smaller players willing to serve smaller niche markets. And, create an environment where satellite services can begin so that all those rural and remote places which are underserved are served better.