The Telecom Commission has favoured auctioning of all available spectrum at the reserve price suggested by Telecom Regulatory Authority of India. The government is expected to garner Rs.5.46 lakh crore from the auction scheduled to be held in July, 2016. The auction of airwaves will include 700 MHz spectrum for the first time in the country.

The amount of auction by each bidder in the higher frequency spectrum bands, above 1GHz (1800 MHz, 2100 MHz, 2300 MHz and 2500 MHz )  should be paid, 50 per cent upfront instead of 33 per cent under the current rules.  The balance to be paid in 10 years after a two year moratorium. For spectrum purchased in the below 1 GHz band (700 MHz, 800 MHz and 900 MHz), companies would require to pay 25 per cent at upfront payment and the rest over 10 years after two years of moratorium.

The reserve price fixed for the 700 MHz spectrum is about Rs.11,500 crore per MHz.

The proposal will now be sent to the Cabinet for approval in the next few days.

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While the official data showed a pick up in GDP growth, India’s employment growth is showing signs of a slowdown according to a study by Care Ratings. In a sample study of 1,072 companies, job growth slowed to near zero in 2014-15. It is 0.3% and the slowest in four years.

Despite governments ‘Make in India’, the number of jobs in the manufacturing sector companies in the sample declined. The employment growth in the manufacturing companies plunged to minus 5.2% in 2014-15 from 3.2% in the previous year.

Manufacturing accounted for 40% of the jobs, the highest share in employment followed by banking (23%) and IT (!8.4%). This means the future of job creation would largely be dependent on the growth in this sector and the low growth in the last three years ia cause for concern.

(source: The Hindu)

It has already been proved beyond and doubt the it will be jobless growth during the period of neo liberalisation.

Com.V.A.N. Namboodiri, Advisor met Shri. Anupam Shrivastava, CMD, BSNL on 29-04-2016 and demanded early restoration of quarterly medical allowance to BSNL pensioners.  The extreme difficulties being faced by the BSNL pensioners after the quarterly medical allowance was unilaterally stopped  were brought to the notice of the CMD on which a detailed letter by CHQ has already been given to him. The CMD agreed to look in to the matter

 Com. V.A.N.Namboodiri, Advisor, AIBDPA, met Shri Samir Gupta, posted in place of Shri. Prachish Khanna Director(Estt.) who is on leave, today, 27th April 2016 and enquired about the latest position of the 78.2% IDA pension fixation issue of BSNL retirees. Director(Estt.) stated that the files are almost ready and will be forwarded to Cabinet Secretary after signing by the Secretary, DOT. It is expected  that the Cabinet Note will be forwarded to Cabinet Secretary by this or next week.

According to the data released by Telecom Regulatory Authority of India on 26-04-2016, number of telecom subscribers increased to1051.88 million as on February 29, 2016 from 1043.29 million in January, 2016.

Tele density in the country registered a growth of 0.82%; increased from 1530.2 to 1539.3 million. In the wireless segment increased to 1026.66 from 1017.97 million in January, 2016. Market share of various companies are as follows;

Bharti Airtel-24.22%, Vodafone- 19.16%, Idea- 17.01%, Reliance- 9.93%, Aircel- 8.44%, BSNL-8.26%, Tata– 5.87%, Telenor- 5.03%, Sistema- 0.75%, Videocon- 0.66%, MTNL- 0.35%.

Growth in wireless subscribers in February, 2016

BSNL- 1.67, Bharti- 1.18, Vodafone- 1.04, Quadrant- 0.94, Idea- 0.85, Aircel- 0.71, Reliance- 0.69, Telenor- 0.49 and MTNL- 0.30

Videocon, Tata and Sistema however registered a reduction during the period.

Circle wise it is Assam with 2.03% growth topped the list while Karnataka and Delhi showed a decline.

In MNP, there were 5.10 million requests in February, 2016 and the total stands to be 204.73 million.

Wireline  declined by 0.10 million from 25.32 million in January to 25.22 million in February, 2016. The market share of the two PSUs is 72.54% (BSNL- 58.63 + MTNL- 13.91). Among the private companies Bharti Airtel topped with 14.43%. BSNL lost 1,34,160 connections in February while MTNL lost 4,423 connections.

The broadband segment registerd a growth of 3.40%; to reach 144.87 million from 140.10 million. The market share is as follows;

Bharti-25.49%, Vodafone- 18.25%, Idea- 15.32%, BSNL- 13.74%, Reliance- 10.8% and others- 16.40%.