The Telecom Regulatory Authority of India (TRAI)?s recommendations on Unified Licences have been met with concern by tower companies.
For this space, the regulator had suggested lowering the foreign direct investment (FDI) cap from 100 per cent to 74 per cent and bringing these companies under the scope of the unified licence regime.
These companies will have to shell out 8 per cent of revenue as the licence fee to bag the permit and have to have a minimum net worth and paid up equity capital of Rs 250 million to be eligible for a pan-India permit.
However, infrastructure players have expressed concern over these proposals, on grounds that the measures will not help this sector to grow.
Also, in response, the Tower and Infrastructure Providers Association (TAIPA) issued a statement saying, ?Bringing in 74 per cent FDI cap is detrimental to the growth of infrastructure and will discourage investment in the sector. Further, this goes completely against the FDI policy of the country, announced last month by the Ministry of Commerce, where, after consideration of the need to attract investment into Telecom Infrastructure, the existing 100 per cent investment has been retained?.
