NEW DELHI, India—The Indian government has reduced the import duty on wireless local loop (WLL) infrastructure equipment from 15 percent to 5 percent. The move is expected to help basic service providers planning to use WLL to roll out fixed wireless and “limited mobility” services using WLL.
With the new measure announced by Finance Minister Yashwant Sinha as part of the annual budgetary exercise, basic operators will now be subjected to the same duty structure as that for cellular service providers. The total import duties applicable to WLL infrastructure will now be 21.8 percent compared with the earlier rate of 38.74 percent.
The provisions of the Income Tax Act will also be changed to enable telecom companies to carry forward their losses, in case of mergers, to a new merged entity. This is likely to boost mergers and acquisitions in the telecom sector. The cellular industry in India has been going through a consolidation process for the past two years.
