M&A norms for telcos need to be liberal: Sibal

NEW DELHI, INDIA: Merger and acquisition guidelines in India's crowded telecoms sector need to be liberal, Telecoms Minister Kapil Sibal said on Monday.

The government is overhauling its decade-old telecoms policy in a bid to make the world's second-largest market for mobile phone services more transparent after the sector was hit by the multi-billion-dollar 2G spectrum licensing scandal.

Current rules do not allow one company to hold 10 per cent or more in two competing operators in a telecoms zone, a regulation analysts have called restrictive.

Sibal said that the new telecoms policy would be finalised by the end of this year, and the allocation of telecom licences would be delinked from mobile spectrum in the future.

India's most recent telecoms policy was framed in 1999, when the sector was dominated by the state monopoly and when few imagined the country would rapidly become the world's fastest growing market for mobile phone services.

Licenses, spectrum de-linked in new telecom policy

The broad framework of a new telecom policy aims to bring in reforms such as audit of spectrum usage, de-link spectrum allocation and licenses and change merger and acquisition guidelines, among others.

"Regular audit and usage of spectrum by various agencies. We feel this is required, whether it is the CAG (Comptroller and Auditor General of India) or the TRAI (Telecom regulatory authority of India), we have not decided yet," Sibal told reporters here.

"All future licenses should be unified licenses and spectrum should be de-linked from licenses," he added. He also said that licence will be renewed after 10 years, not 20 years like earlier.

(With inputs fro IANS)