Government bats to rescue telcos

New Delhi: The government has asked the Supreme Court whether telecom operators whose licences will be revoked due to an earlier order can operate until a spectrum auction in March, a senior government official said.
The move aims to generate more interest in the auction after the government failed to attract takers for GSM spectrum in four key telecom circles and no bidders for CDMA in the auction in November, he said.
The government filed an affidavit before the apex court on the matter on Tuesday, he said, adding that an an extension would also ensure continuity of services to consumers.
The court order affected eight carriers including the Indian units of Norway's Telenor and Russia's Sistema, as well as Idea Cellular.
The government held a spectrum auction in November to allow some of those companies to win back spectrum, but the sale raised less than a quarter of its Rs 40,000 crore target. 
Licence fee cut likely to spur free roaming
The telecom department (DoT) is looking at giving financial incentives to telecom operators for rolling out free mobile roaming in the country.
“The DoT is looking at various options to get telecom operators to launch free roaming, including cutting licence fees by upto two per cent,” sources said.
Currently, telecom operators pay around eight per cent of the adjusted gross revenues (AGR) as licence fee to the government.
A final decision on the issue to expected to be taken by January-end.
Analysts had warned of revenue loss following the introduction of free roaming, and thereby a hike in  tariff. However, a cut in licence fee would compensate the companies.