Trai works to rejig licensing regime to promote investments and innovation

New Delhi: India’s telecom regulator is aggressively working on reforming the licensing regime and would soon release a consultation paper to base its views on promoting innovation and attracting new investments, as a part of ease of doing business in the sector.“Currently, we are working on reforming the licensing and regulatory regime to catalyse investments and innovation and promote ease of doing business. For this, the consultation paper will be released shortly,” Ram Sewak Sharma, chairman, Telecom Regulatory Authority of India (Trai), told ET.The sector watchdog has previously recommended a slew of measures to DoT such as the reduction in levies, and the upcoming initiative is aimed to further improve the industry’s health in line with the national policy unveiled in 2018.Trai had earlier presented its views to the department on rationalisation of adjusted gross revenue (AGR), reduction of license fee, spectrum usage charge (SUC) and Universal Service Obligation Fund (USOF) contribution, and flexible payment options for auctioned spectrum. “The authority through its letters has reiterated that DoT may favourably consider those recommendations as they would help minimise financial stress of telecom companies,” the top official said.In January 2015, the regulator had recommended that the component of the USO levy should be reduced from the present 5% to 3% of the AGR. With this reduction, the applicable uniform rate of licence fee would become 6%, from the present 8% of AGR, according to Trai, while the 3% of license fee (LF) that directly accrues to the government would not change.

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