Description
SAGE Publications India Pvt Ltd India`S Telecommunications Industry: History, Analysis, Diagnosis by Ashok V Desai
Since the 1980s, regulation has been a dominant mantra in economic reforms in developed countries. The Government of India (GoI) too, in the wake of reforms in the 1990s, zealously appointed regulators as an alternative to the direct control of industriesin telecommunications, banking, capital markets, insurance, hydrocarbons and electricity. But Indian regulatory authorities have by and large been ineffective.
In this pioneering study of Indias telecom sector, Ashok Desaieminent economist, former advisor to the Government of India on economic reforms and columnistexamines the reasons why regulation does not work in India. In doing so, he:
- challenges the use of naïve indicatorslike teledensity and the proportion of villages connectedto claim regulatory success;
- identifies systemic causes for the ineffectiveness of regulators in Indian conditions;
- argues that an independent regulator is incompatible with the governments ownership of operators and retention of a powerful executive department; and
- proposes, among other solutions, the opening up of industry to local competition by delicensing last-mile operations.