‘Difficult to do business in India; telecom is in a mess’

“The process for doing business in India can be made much easier, much smoother by just removing a few things,” he stressed. Vodafone is the second largest telecom company in the world.

His sentiment was also shared by Sashi Mukundan, regional president and head of country (India), BP Group, who expressed frustration at the gas price deadlock. “We have had to hold on to $4 billion of investments due to price uncertainty. We are looking forward to the report on September 30,” he said at a discussion on “What business needs: Foreign companies speak.”

Pieters also blamed the government for hoarding spectrum while investing too little in telecom infrastructure. Spectrum, which is our raw material is limited … most companies have a quarter of the spectrum that normal operators have in other countries,” he said. Noting that though the industry structure is the government’s responsibility, he said, “I see very little action to take this responsibility.”

The Vodafone India CEO said his company that has been waiting for a clearance from the Authority for Advance Rulings before bringing in funds from the parent company to buy airwaves but the clearance is still awaited.

“We filed an application in December last year but have received no answer till now,” he said, stressing that the government needs to do its job. “I have no answer, I got to know last week that the officer dealing with the file has retired,” he said.

Pieters also raised the issue of the new Companies’ Act. “We have very good independent directors. But under the new law, we can’t pay them (beyond a certain level) as we are a loss making company. So what do we do?”

He, however, admitted that it is too early to judge the new government within its first 100 days. “Let’s judge them after 12-18 months,” he said.

Addressing the session, Cai Liqun, chief executive officer, Huawei Telecommunications (India) also said that the new government must work hard to motivate the industry.

Banmali Agrawala, president and CEO (South Asia), General Electric also agreed and said that the government must restore its credibility and move away from focussing on just one individual.