Company Name*

Your Phone Number*

Your Email*

Your Message*

Verify the image caption below:

BBG Communications
1658 Gailes Boulevard, San Diego, CA, 92154
Phone:

Telecommunications Liberalisation in India

2008-12-01

---

The Indian government had a hard time reconciling various views with regards to the liberalization of the telecommunications sector in the country. Some of the political leaders were willing to throw open the market to foreign players and some others wanted the government to regulate infrastructure and restrict the involvement of foreign players. But, a consensus was made which paved the way for the 1981 contract signing of then Prime Minister Indira Gandhi with Alcatel CIT of France to merge with the state owned Telecom Company. The projection for this joint venture was the setting up of 5,000,000 lines per year.

But not long after, political pressures grew that despite of the efforts of PM Gandhi, one of which was an invitation she extended to Sam Pitroda a US based NRI to set up a Center for Development of Telematics, plans for liberalization had to be shelved.
Later, under the leadership of Prime Minister Rajiv Gandhi, many public sector organizations were set up like the Department of Telecommunications, VSNL and MTNL. Many technological developments took place during his term but the country’s telecommunications business was still heavily working on a protectionist framework.

And yet the demand for telephones has been on the rise. It was during this period that the P.M. Rao led government introduced the national telecommunications policy in 1994. Changes in the areas of ownership, service and regulation of telecommunications infrastructure were in place. Where previous joint ventures failed between state owned telecommunications companies and international players, this time, it was all systems go. But still complete ownership of facilities was restricted only to government-owned organizations. Foreign firms were allowed only ownership of........

NEXT:
India Long Distance Service Liberalisation