Govt to revisit M&A guidelines, if needed: Ravi Shankar Prasad

New Delhi: The government will revisit the merger and acquisition guidelines for the telecom sector, if need arises, IT & Communications Minister Ravi Shankar Prasad said on November 5 while assuring that issues concerning the sector will be looked into.

"I have already constituted a committee headed by Telecom Secretary to revisit guidelines...I have instructed the Secretary to look into issues of stakeholders and if there is a need to revisit merger and acquisition guidelines, do that," Prasad said at the India Economic Summit here.

The committee, headed by Telecom Secretary Rakesh Garg, will also look into issues concerning the telecom sector, like the ease of doing business. The committee's first meeting took place today wherein industry associations raised their concerns. Telecom operators have long been demanding changes in the M&A rules, terming them difficult.

Vodafone India chief Marten Pieters had said that companies should be allowed to buy assets of a particular firm such as spectrum and not the entire firm which has a lot of debt in its books. Sectoral regulator TRAI had also said M&A rules need to be reworked for any pick-up in consolidation activity. About the spectrum auction, the Minister said Department of Telecom (DoT) is in talks with the Defence Ministry for release of extra spectrum.

"We are going to have new spectrum auction also. We are in discussion with Minister of Defence for the release of extra spectrum. We want to make the whole regime transparent, with the twin objective of growth and consumer interest in mind," Prasad said.

TRAI had also said that extra spectrum from defence should be put to auction along with the spectrum in 900 and 1800 MHz bands. Prasad also said spectrum trading and sharing guidelines would be in place by the end of this year. "We are going to straighten spectrum issues soon, spectrum sharing and trading guidelines would be in place by end of this year," he added.

Prasad said the government is pushing electronics manufacturing in the country in a big way. He said India is now importing electronics good worth USD 100 billion year and the import bill is likely to cross USD 400 billion by 2020. He also highlighted the importance of National Optical Fibre Network (NOFN) mission, that aims to provide high-speed broadband connectivity to 2.50 lakh gram panchayats in India by March, 2017.