Big telecom operators put two demands in a meeting with TRAI. The meeting was attended by many operators including Reliance Communications, Idea Cellular, Vodafone, MTS, Tata Teleservices, BSNL, MTNL, Aircel, Reliance Jio Infocomm Limited (RJIL) and Bharti Airtel. Except Reliance Jio, all the operators asked TRAI for setting a floor price for voice calls and data. Just to inform, if this demand is fulfilled by TRAI, no free services can be availed. Secondly, they wanted subsidies in spectrum charges and license fee other than demanding more time to pay spectrum price.
Now here a basic question arises in our minds – Do these big telecom operators really need subsidy?
If subsidy is demanded by a poor community like farmers who earn their livelihood with great difficulty and pains, it’s certainly justifiable but such a demand from established companies is simply unreasonable.
A number of cases of farmers’ suicide have come to light, as they were not able to fulfill the needs of their families for financial reasons. Farmers have to struggle really hard to get their crops sold at a good price and it’s often seen that they hardly get any profit. On account of the same, they usually made a demand of waiving off their loans in addition to minimum support price, which is quite reasonable too!
However, talking about the telecom companies, they get about 30% EBITDA and it’s really shameful that a demand of subsidy has been made by them. First of all, they usually don’t give lucrative offers which might attract customers and since the consumers have no option, they opt for such firms. Now despite the fact that they are well-off, their demand of subsidy is difficult to deal with. Agree? Are they really financially weak that they need support of subsidy? Can their condition be compared with that of poor helpless farmers?
What do you have to say about it? Can you state any reason which can justify the demands of these telecom operators? Let us know in the comments section below.