There was a strong business case to buy spectrum says, Ravi Shankar Prasad

Union telecommunications and IT minister Ravi Shankar Prasad said, with the sale of 4G spectrum auctions over, operators must focus less on legal battles and more on providing quality services given that the sector has stabilised. Prasad underlined the success of the production-linked incentive (PLI) scheme for smartphones, saying applicants have already produced goods worth Rs 35,000 crore at an investment of Rs 1,300 crore.

The minister said, out of the Rs 4 lakh crore amount that we had fixed, the prime band was not auctioned. Yet, we could get Rs 78,000 crore. In 2016, there were seven players, this time only three. This only shows that players are keen to offer good 4G services for consumer satisfaction. The government expected only about Rs 45,000 crore. Why did the operators purchase so much? This means there is a strong business case to buy the resource.

A question is asked, if the government would reduce the price of the 700 MHz band?

If a band is untouched in the auction, then we could have send it to Trai (Telecom Regulatory Authority of India) for fresh pricing.

While speaking on the PLI scheme for telecom equipment manufacturing. Minister said, India already has manufacturers like Ericsson, Nokia, Samsung, Jabil and Sanmina. These players have evinced interest...we expect more players to apply. We are importing equipment worth Rs 50,000 crore and export is just Rs 7,000 crore. I am very keen that India become a complete ecosystem for electronics manufacturing: mobiles, accessories, PCBs, telecom equipment, laptops, tablets, iPads, servers, semiconductors and medical equipment, followed by strategic electronics.