Foreign equity limit for ISP may be raised

NEW DELHI, JULY 25: The Government is considering hiking foreign equity limit for internet service providers ISP from the current 49 per...

NEW DELHI, JULY 25: The Government is considering hiking foreign equity limit for internet service providers ISP from the current 49 per cent and the issue is likely to be taken up in the next meeting of Telecom Commission scheduled for the first week of August.

quot;There is a proposal to increase the foreign equity limit for Internet Service Providers and this would be discussed in the next meeting of Telecom Commission,quot; Shyamal Ghosh, secretary of Department of Telecom DoT, said on the sidelines of the seminar on Convergence 2000 organised by Indo-American Chamber of Commerce here.

Ghosh said that with the foreign equity limit in e-commerce sector pegged at 100 per cent there was a strong case for increasing the FDI in ISP sector.

He, however, declined to comment on the quantum of FDI increase being considered by the commission. On the National Long Distance NLD norms, Ghosh said that various issues including intra circle traffic and the revenue sharing were being considered. Earlier this month government notified increase in foreign equity limit to 100 per cent in e-commerce and refining sectors and removed investment limit in power projects.

FDI upto 100 per cent would be allowed in e-commerce subject to the condition that the company would divest 26 per cent to the public within five years if it was already listed abroad.

Foreign equity in NLD to be restricted: The Government will restrict the foreign equity in National Long Distance NLD sector at 49 per cent, Minister of state for communications Tapan Sikdar told the Rajya Sabha today.

He said the national long distance sector would be opened by August 15 and the competition would be proposed without restricting the number of players.

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To another question he said there was no proposal to privatise the telecom public sectors MTNL and VSNL. He said the total Optic Fibre cable network in the country is about 1.83 lakh route kms and of which 1.77 lakh route kms beloged to Department of Telecom, while 2921 km cables were owned by Railways and 2939 belonged to Power Grid Corporation.

In addition, Opitcal Fibre networks have been commissioned by some private telecom operators in their operating areas. DoT planned to add another one lakh route kms of Fibre Optic cables to the network during 2000-01, he added.