DoT takes call on foreign CEOs

Also, foreigners are not to be barred from taking up senior management positions such as CEO, CTO or CFO on telecom company boards. Instead, the Home Ministry will vet all non-Indian appointments individually. The new rules only say that senior management positions shall 8216;8216;ordinarily8217;8217; be held by resident Indian citizens.

An earlier clause saying that such appointments need to be cleared by 8216;8216;serious Indian investors8217;8217; who hold at least 10 per cent in a telecom company has been deleted.

These guidelines have been forwarded in a note to the Prime Minister8217;s Office PMO, along with a lengthy list of 43 security-related conditions which are intended to be made common to all licensees, irrespective of the level of FDI.

The DoT has stated that following the record of discussions circulated by the PMO on February 23, it proposes that 8216;8216;security issues may be de-linked from the guidelines for FDI8217;8217; and that, 8216;8216;the conditions should separately form part of licence conditions irrespective of the level of FDI.8217;8217;

The security conditions, available with The Indian Express, incorporate five new provisions See Box required for allowing FDI in telecom service companies.

New guidelines introduced after the Amar Singh phone-tapping scam are part of these norms.

The conditions also include all fresh regulations that DoT has been issuing to its licencees from time to time.

Though no circuit switched traffic is to be allowed to any place outside India, the norms give satellite communications serving domestic traffic an exemption.

These will not be considered as being outside India, as per the norms, implying another major relaxation.

The security conditions also include a plethora of provisions whereby the licensee has to permit inspection of installations, surveillance of telephones after authorisation, the takeover of their services in case of national emergencies, making available their entire list of subscribers and so on.