The chiefs of leading telecom companies met Indian Prime Minister Manmohan Singh and other key policy makers Wednesday to discuss contentious issues plaguing the telecom sector.
Sunil Mittal (Bharti Airtel), Anil Ambani (Reliance Communications), Vodafone (Vittorio Colao), Kumar Mangalam Birla (Idea Cellular), and Ishaat Hussain (Tata Teleservices) also met Finance Minister Pranab Mukherjee, Telecom Minister Kapil Sibal, Commerce Minister Anand Sharma, Law Minister Salman Khurshid, TRAI chairman J S Sarma, Telecom Secretary R Chandrasekhar, and PM’s principal secretary Pulok Chaterjee.
The top executives of these companies sought the early resolution of dispute over the controversial 3G roaming agreements and additional spectrum fees.
Earlier, the top executives of Airtel, Vodafone and Idea Cellular wrote a letter to the Indian PM and sought his intervention after the government’s move to disallow the 3G roaming deals between telecom companies.
“We seek your most urgent intervention to ensure that contract and promises are honoured, otherwise the reputation of an acclaimed, transparent auction, will be harmed irreparably,” the letter had stated.
The firms, in the letter, had also threatened to exit 3G services if the promises made by the government are not honored.
The telco chiefs also discussed the issue of one-time fee for additional spectrum held by GSM operators and the telecom regulators’ recommendations on M&As.
