The Inter-Ministerial Group (IMG) constituted to suggest measures to ease the financial stress in the telecom sector, which was supposed to meet on Friday, will now meet on August 22, and it is likely to come out with the final report on suggestions for the industry on the same day.

“The meeting has been postponed to August 22 as some of the members were not available for the meeting on Friday. We hope to come out with the report as it has been already three months to the setting up of the group,” a senior government official told BusinessLine .

The IMG was set up on May 16 to work on the stress in balance sheets in the telecom sector, and has been studying balance sheets of the past three years (2014-15, 2015-16 and 2016-17) of telcos.

Earlier, it had also written to all telcos, individually, seeking their income (opex, net profit and average revenue per user) of the past three years.

There had been intense talks on relief given to telcos in the form of reductions in contribution through spectrum usage charges (SUC) and licence fee.

The sector is also expecting a relief on spectrum payments (16 years to make payments instead of the present eight), lower interest rate (10.5 per cent at present) on outstanding spectrum payments and relief on annual licence payout, among others.

Operators have also asked for the removal of 5 per cent payout towards the Universal Service Obligation Fund (USOF), even though many in the industry believe this could be considered.

However, there is still lack of consensus on these issues, including scrapping or reduction in contribution to USOF.

Meanwhile, on its last its meeting on August 11, the IMG had discussed that a policy intervention may not be required as ‘green shoots’ in the telecom sector have started to appear in the first quarter.

Telecom Minister Manoj Sinha had also told the Lok Sabha during question hour on August 3, that IMG will submit its report in 20 days, based on which, the government can take corrective measures.

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