No relief on bank guarantee to be provided to operators, work on quality of service underway: Telecom Minister Jyotiraditya Scindia

Communications Minister Jyotiraditya Scindia said on Tuesday that no relief on bank guarantee will be provided to any telecom operator and no decision has been made yet. The development comes at a time when private sector telecom service provider Vodafone Idea has requested the government to waive a bank guarantee of Rs 24,700 crore for spectrum allocation. No decision will be company-specific but will have an impact on the entire sector, he said. 

The minister also touched upon a range of topics while interacting with reporters. Here are 10 important things to know:    

• BSNL will provide 4G services across the country by the end of December. For now, BSNL and MTNL are working together, while the monetisation of the latter's assets is underway, he said. 
• "MTNL debts are sovereign-guaranteed... The company will have to negotiate with banks and settle the loan," he said. 
• The telecom ministry is working towards the third phase of BharatNet, an ambitious programme that aims to ensure broadband connectivity to all households and institutions in the country. The aim is to connect 50,000 gram panchayats with the network, the minister said. 
• Work is underway on proposals aimed at resolving issues like call drops and enhancing the quality of service (QoS) in the sector, with monitoring being carried out on a monthly basis instead of the earlier quarterly, according to the minister.
• Scindia also highlighted that the monitoring activities put in place now are more intricate than before. Earlier, only tower areas were covered under such activities but now even sales-level activities are being monitored, he said. Failure to comply will lead to monetary penalties, the minister added.
• Authorities are blocking about 1.35 crore spoof calls daily, he said. 
• Till now, action has been taken against 1,900 people in cases of fake and spam calls while as many as 18 lakh numbers have been blacklisted, he pointed out. 
• Speaking on spectrum allocations, the minister said that the government is expecting to receive the Telecom Regulatory Authority of India's recommendations soon on the matter. 
• Asked about tech czar Elon Musk's Starlink, the minister said the American company is yet to comply with security norms and a licence for satellite communications services will be issued only after it meets all the requirements for services in India. 
• He also said that the satellite communication services major is in the process of completing all the requirements and will get a licence once they complete the process. "We are more than happy to give them (licence) if they (Starlink) comply with all the conditions," added Scindia. Read more on what the telecom minister said on Starlink