Vaishnaw says next major target is to get telecom bill passed in Parliament monsoon session

The telecom bill will drive significant reforms in the areas of spectrum, licences and regulations, and the government is hopeful of getting the legislation passed in the monsoon session of the Parliament, Communications Minister Ashwini Vaishnaw said on Tuesday.

The government is looking at the inputs it received after circulating the first draft of the bill, and the second draft is currently in the works.

"Our next major target is getting the telecom bill passed in the coming monsoon session. And that will lead to a major series of reforms in terms of spectrum, licences, regulation, there will be significant reform because of the telecom bill," the minister said.

The government is working on the inputs received from various ministries, industry participants, global bodies, and other regulators such as TRAI and CCI.

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"We are taking all the inputs into consideration and we should be coming up with the final draft..." the minister said, adding that law making is always done in a transparent manner.

When asked about Vodafone Idea, the minister said the company is not in default as of today but needs more capital to support its operations.

The India stack rolling out will spell major changes in the global dynamics. Many countries now want to implement India's indigenous 4G/5G stack and India's solution on 'billion plus scale' has appealed to many nations, he noted.

Regarding the government's view on the telecom players' demand that OTT (Over the top) communications apps should share revenue for using telcos' infrastructure, the minister said there is new thinking and regulatory changes taking shape in the OTT space across the world.

"There is a global discussion, lots of regulatory changes are happening in the entire world where there is a kind of new thinking in the OTT space all over the world. Let us see how the world moves, and how the entire sector pans out," he said.

However, he did not divulge how the government will proceed on the revenue share demand.

While noting that telecom is an industry where everything is benchmarked to the world, he said, "so whatever we do will be in sync with the global trends".

The government, in the draft telecom bill -- circulated for stakeholder comments last year -- proposed a provision to waive fees and penalty of telecom and internet service providers.