Our communications minister Arun Shourie seems to be not too much in favor of communicating. Find out from any industry senior how easy it is to meet the minister. Ask that person how many times has he met the communications minister. I will be surprised if you get a positive response. "Our minister just does not meet," is the common reply that you are likely to get. This is as far as telecom industry is concerned. The fate of users is much worse.

For a long time, the Cellular versus WLL debate is going on. The fact that the latest TDSAT ruling is not unanimous is once again a clear indicator of the difference of opinion among the experts. Our policies are susceptible to all kinds of interpretations. So what kind of a policy is this, the industry is asking. More than this, the industry is now beginning to question the Communications ministry’s capability in terms of taking steps to remove uncertainties about policies. Policy uncertainties, year after year, is only making the industry jittery. Whom do these people turn to?

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There is complete confusion and chaos in the market place. Both COAI and ABTO are claiming that the latest judgment is in their favor. Nobody seems to know what is the reality. For a long time, subscribers did not really mind all this drama, as long as prices kept going down. But, not any longer, and they are getting annoyed at this confusion and uncertainty. Whom do they go to?

For a long time, we have been saying that go to the users. They are the final beneficiaries, who will not only decide what technology they want, what services they want, and what price they will pay for it. It looks that ‘User is King’ is only a slogan; nobody believes in it. Not even Arun Shourie. There have been repeated attempts by some of the most active and biggest telecom user groups like TUGI to meet the minister to share with him users’ problems and concerns. But the minister has no time. A few smaller telecom consumers have also tried to meet the minister, but in vain. We have seen, in many instances, an interaction between government officials and users has helped a lot in terms of better understanding. The cost of non-communications could prove to be high.

The government is annoying the public at large, the big telecom players, the thousands of small players whose survival depends on the big players, and the investment community. As if this is not enough, because the government is not doing anything to remove the anomalies and confusion points in the telecom policy, TRAI and TDSAT are getting a bad name.

Solutions might take time, but communicating and keeping in touch where solutions are getting delayed is all the more important. This will also act as a confidence building measure, something that is badly needed today.

Ibrahim Ahmed