Govt may not table telecom bill this year

The government is unlikely to table the draft Indian Telecommunications Bill for Parliament’s approval in the upcoming winter session, said two people familiar with the development.

- Gulveen Aulakh

The people said, asking not to be named, that the government intended to launch deeper inter-ministerial discussions on some of the issues, which were continuously evolving.

“The bill will be relevant for the coming decade, so it will need a very careful approach and meaningful discussions. That will take some time," one of the people said.

The second person aware of the deliberations said that while regulating over the top (OTT) entities is likely to be kept out of the bill—they will be regulated by the IT Act instead—the government intends to pre-empt any additional issues that may crop up in the coming years, including those related to OTTs.

The communications ministry and department of telecom did not respond to queries sent by Mint.

The government planned deeper discussions on the draft bill come at a time when telecom service providers have demanded the same rules for the same kind of services being provided by telcos and OTTs.

In communications to the government, the carriers have said the upcoming telecom bill should govern all the aspects of OTT services since they operate by “heavily exploiting" telecom networks but do not fall under any regulation or law.