From the archive record
Basic telephone service sector has now been open to private operators with the government allowing entry to the Indian registered companies in the field with the maximum foreign equity of 49%. It is also decided to license one private operator as a competitor to the department of telecommunication in each telecom circle. Tape No 0778 Last week when the union communication minister Sukhram announced that the basic telephone services sector is to be open to private operators it became a watershed in the telecom industry's history. For more than a hundred years providing this service has been the monopoly of the state-owned department of telecommunications and its younger sibling the Mahanagar Telephone Nigam Limited but with the government realizing that the development of the telecom sector