‘Telcos will get killed if Trai does not act'

BHARTI Airtel chairman Sunil Bharti Mittal on Thursday said the country’s debt-ridden telecom industry is getting killed due to low tariffs and Trai must intervene to ensure that average revenue earned from every customer works out to Rs 300.

“We are unnecessarily killing this industry in a manner and way that is not conducive for our industry, and that's why we need Trai (Telecom Regulatory Authority of India) intervention,” Mittal told journalists after a pre-budget meeting between finance minister Nirmala Sitharaman and corporate leaders.

Mittal said a combination of dirt-cheap tariffs and high consumption is killing the industry and Trai’s immediate intervention is needed to strike a balance between protecting investments and consumer interest.

“The Rs 200 ARPU (average revenue per user) is eventually going to be Rs 300 ARPU,” said Mittal. He reasoned that Rs 300 is the average between the lower end of Rs 100 and higher end of Rs 450-500 over a month of consuming rich data, voice and other services.

“This will still be $4 a month...by far the lowest anywhere in the world, and yet consuming two or three times more data than anywhere else in the world,” he said.