Is there any plan for disinvestment in MTNL (providing services in Delhi and Mumbai)?
There is no proposal at the moment to dilute government equity in MTNL. One of the players in the telecom space will be government for a long time. Will be or you want it to be? Will be. I am not saying want to be. Look, compared with BSNL, Reliance and Tatas are small players. Second, telecom is also a part of the social sector and there are social obligations which are required to be met. The rationale for government presence is more social than strategic. Talking of the social agenda, how many of the countrys 600,000 villages have we connected via a village public telephone (VPT)? BSNL is adding 10,000 VPTs a month. The six private sector basic telephony players have not even put up 700 till date. What are you planning to do to penalise them? I am caught between the devil and deep sea. I have the option to delicence, since providing VPTs was part of their contractual obligation. However, to unplug them would ruin the whole telecom liberalisation process. Isnt there a question mark o
