Telecom minister Manoj Sinha has downplayed the threats of massive job losses in the telecom sector due to ongoing consolidation, asserting an upheaval in the industry is natural every time there’s a new entrant, but the dust settles in a couple of years which is also expected this time around.
The minister, who was sharing the sector’s achievements since the new government took over middle of 2014, said his ministry was closely monitoring other issues in the industry such as call drops and impact of 18 percent GST from July 1, which carriers claim will increase the cost of services to consumers.
Sinha said the government will take a decision in proper time after it receives the clarifications from the Telecom Regulatory Authority of India (Trai) — released on the regulator’s website on Wednesday — in which it stood by its recommendations of penalties of Rs 30.5 billion to be levied on Airtel, Vodafone and Idea Cellular for allegedly denying Reliance Jio adequate points of interconnect, violating conditions.
Speaking about the impact of ongoing consolidation in the industry, Sinha said a similar upheaval happened in 2003 when a new player –Reliance Infocomm (now Reliance Communications) — entered the market, but things settled down in a couple of years. The minister said the government would not stop any new player from entering an open market.
With rapid mergers and acquisitions happening across the industry, HR experts and industry executives say nearly one lakh direct or indirect jobs are under threat out of the around three lakh people employed with the sector, directly or indirectly.
By Baishakhi Dutta
