Government had made the model concession agreement (MCA) mandatory for the highway projects that were to be awarded through PPP route.  MCA allows projects to be carried out on the basis of build-operate-transfer (BOT) and build-operate-own (BOO). While MCA ensures risk and reward involved in implementation of the projects is optimally balanced, it also promises increase in the pace of project award. However, recent statistics of project award for national highways shows that government is lagging behind in awarding the projects. (more…)

TRAI has been advocating unrestricted internet telephony since last year. In November 2008, the regulator had recommended that internet service providers (ISPs) be allowed to terminate Net telephony calls on phones, including mobiles. The regulator had also sent a reminder to the DoT in January, emphasising the importance of internet telephony. ISPs allege that the government is stalling the opening up of internet telephony to benefit telecom operators whose dominance could be challenged by lifting the existing curbs. (more…)

Never did a week pass in the last couple of years when there was no news about the problems relating to the telecom sector and more often than not the problems were originating from the Department of Technology (DoT) i.e. the policymaker. (more…)