Govt should grow up, Indian telecom sector can't be treated as piggy bank

Government should have the courage to make decisions that benefit companies investing in a struggling sector

Something about India’s telecom sector attracts its grasping state like a bee to honey. Most companies in the space have already been taxed, regulated, fined, licensed or just plain expropriated half to death. Yet that hasn’t stopped India’s bureaucrats, or its politicians, or even its judges. Ignoring the fact that telecom growth pulled the Indian economy towards double-digit growth back in the barely-remembered boom years of a decade ago, they seem to see the sector now less as an economic engine and more as a piggy bank.

The most egregious recent example is the government’s attempt to profit off a