Indian government rubbishes telco partiality charges

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The Indian Department of Telecommunications (DoT) has rubbished state owned telco Bharat Sanchar Nigam Limited’s (BSNL) employee union allegations that it favors private operators.
BSNL’s 300,000 plus employee association alleges the DoT is formulating policies to favor private telecom operators with regard to licence fee and spectrum charges.
A senior DoT official refuted the allegations saying, “there is no double standard at all and we don’t have policies which favor private players. To foster the growth of BSNL, we earlier assured spectrum release to BSNL even before the auction happened. This should prove the transparency in our policies.”
The association said there was a double standard in BSNL having to pay a license fee for non-telecom revenues, whereas private players pay licence fees based on telecom revenue only.
A BSNL employee association rep even went as far as calling the DoT’s treatment “highly prejudiced and discriminatory.”
BSNL has been steadily losing market share to private players of late and obviously fear further losses ahead, but DoT officials are remaining tightlipped on the issues and seem in no mood to change their policies.