Committee suggests break-up of India's Dept of Telecom

A report by an official committee headed by former member of India's
Telecom Commission, Mr D K Gupta, recommended on Sunday (19th March 1995)
that the Commission be separated from the Indian Government's 
Department of Telecommunications (DoT), which is also the monopoly service 
provider.

The Minister for Communications, Mr Sukh Ram, is to consider the Gupta
committee recommendations this week. The committee suggested the creation
of an autonomous organization, India Telecom, as a service provider 
replacing the DoT. This would be subject to the regulatory control of
the Telecom Regulatory Authority of India (TRAI), which is in the process 
of being set up. While the TRAI would be analogous to the US FCC, the
Telecom Commission would continue to formulate national policy, which may
include the regulations to be enforced by the TRAI. The Commission would
continue to supervise the operation of the autonomous Centre for the 
Development of Telematics (C-DOT), an effort at creating indigenous
equipment that has proved extremely successful especially in rural telecom.
A member of the Commission would also hold the ex-officio post of CEO,
India Telecom.

The government is good at funding committees and studying reports. One
last year, led by Mr M B Athreya, which suggested the break-up of the DoT's
operations into four regional companies, was not welcomed by its half million
or more permanent employees. The Gupta recommendations, which suggest
independently profitable telecom 'circles' (regions) within India Telecom,
may not be more popular. This committee is the latest in the government's
attempts at fostering fair competition between the public- versus private-
sector duopoly in telecom services that is planned to be in operation by 
next year.

--==(C) Copyright 1995 Rishab Aiyer Ghosh (rishab@dxm.org)
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