A day before the Telecom Regulatory Authority of India’s (Trai’s) order, telecom minister Manoj Sinha met officials to discuss Reliance Jio’s promotional offers and their impact on the telecom sector and licence fee collection, two people familiar with the matter said. Licence fee collection in the March quarter is expected to decline 28% to Rs 2,300 crore from Rs 3,165.8 crore in the December quarter, these people said, asking not to be identified. Sinha was briefed by his bureaucrats about the industry’s demand that licence fee for the fourth quarter should be on actuals and should be equal to the licence fee of the last quarter. Read moreTelecom companies have repeatedly complained against Jio’s free offers since its launch in September. “Going forward, new free offers from RJio could invite greater scrutiny and may not be easy to push through, if this event is any indication,” it said in a note on Friday.

Source: Hindustan Times April 10, 2017 02:15 UTC