Centre over-regulating telecom: Tata Group

Tata Group chairman Ratan Tata today charged the government for unnecessarily regulating the telecom industry and forbidding its technological upgradation.

Tata also expressed willingness to complete 100% identification of subscribers belonging to group's telecom firms, Tata Teleservices Maharashtra and Tata Tele Services.

"The government has imposed a lot of regulations and is not permitting major technological upgradation, though the industry is making rapid technological progress," Ratan Tata told shareholders at the AGM of TTML here.

Ratan Tata said the Government's decision to change TTML's code numbers, resulted in loss of huge number of subscribers, as most of them were not ready to change their old numbers.

"Telecom regulator TRAI imposed a Rs 50 crore penalty on us for Push-To-Talk call rate service. We had implemented this service after providing detailed information to TRAI...despite that we were charged with a fine," he said.

The matter in this regard is presently in the tribunal and Tatas have received a stay on Trai order. Stating the company is committed for 100 per cent subscriber identfication, Tata said TTSL and TTML may even face short term impact.

"We disconnected 32,000 subscribers in the last few months as their identification could not be completed," he said, adding the proposal put by other players for identifying 10% subscribers randomly is "meaningless".