Snapshot
At current prices, the spectrum has gone out of the reach of a highly debt-ridden telecom industry.
One obvious way out is to lower base prices and allow the bidding to happen on revenue share. Companies which offer a higher future revenue share get more spectrum.
Details
The government’s ongoing spectrum auction looks like yielding a mouse: over Rs 5,63,000 crore worth of spectrum is on offer, including the super-premium 700 Mhz band, but bids at the end of the fourth day (5 October) had barely reached the treetop at Rs 63,000 crore.
No one is touching the high-priced 700 Mhz (priced at Rs 11,485 crore per Mhz) with a bargepole. Bidding is said to be concentrated around the 1,800 Mhz, 2,100 Mhz, 2,500 Mhz, 2,300 Mhz and 800 Mhz bands, and that too to fill gaps in operators’ current circles. No one is bidding skyhigh.
While Rs 63,000 crore is nothing to sniff at, the fact is high-priced spectrum is now reaching its natural limits of growth in demand. Not because spectrum is not needed, but because pricing has gone out of the reach of a highly debt-ridden telecom industry.
At last count, the industry had over Rs 3,80,000 crore of debt on its books, and the current auction will surely take it past the Rs 4,00,000 crore mark. The industry’s spirit may be willing, but the flesh is weak on balance-sheet risks.
While debt is forcing consolidation in the industry, with Aircel and Sistema merging with Reliance Communications, the industry continues to have at least two more players than what current voice and data tariffs can support. The weakest links in the telecom sector are Tata Teleservices and Telenor, neither of which has critical mass in terms of customers. The entry of Reliance Jio will push at least one of the two out.
But even if consolidation speeds up, the debt issue remains paramount. RBI Governor Urjit Patel mentioned telecom as one of the five most stressed sectors for bank lending.
At some point, the government has to realise that the health of the telecom sector is closely linked to the banking sector. When spectrum becomes excessively costly, it is banks who have to lend more to ensure its purchase.
Put another way, when government rakes in huge spectrum revenues, the money for it comes from its other pocket, government-owned banks. While no one is saying that any telecom company is going to go bust in the near future, high spectrum prices are becoming a problem.
We need a way out where spectrum is priced reasonably without showing the industry any special favours.
One obvious way out is to lower base prices and allow the bidding to happen on revenue share. Companies which offer a higher future revenue share get more spectrum. This will ensure that spectrum is paid for only after the customer base in built and revenues are generated rather than upfront.
It is time to rethink how spectrum should be priced. A Raja’s way was wrong, but there is no reason to head in the opposite direction of prescribing extortionate prices for spectrum. A middle path is needed.
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Petrol in India is cheaper than in countries like Hong Kong, Germany and the UK but costlier than in China, Brazil, Japan, the US, Russia, Pakistan and Sri Lanka, a Bank of Baroda Economics Research report showed.
Rising fuel prices in India have led to considerable debate on which government, state or central, should be lowering their taxes to keep prices under control.
The rise in fuel prices is mainly due to the global price of crude oil (raw material for making petrol and diesel) going up. Further, a stronger dollar has added to the cost of crude oil.
Amongst comparable countries (per capita wise), prices in India are higher than those in Vietnam, Kenya, Ukraine, Bangladesh, Nepal, Pakistan, Sri Lanka, and Venezuela. Countries that are major oil producers have much lower prices.
In the report, the Philippines has a comparable petrol price but has a per capita income higher than India by over 50 per cent.
Countries which have a lower per capita income like Kenya, Bangladesh, Nepal, Pakistan, and Venezuela have much lower prices of petrol and hence are impacted less than India.
“Therefore there is still a strong case for the government to consider lowering the taxes on fuel to protect the interest of the people,” the report argued.
India is the world’s third-biggest oil consuming and importing nation. It imports 85 per cent of its oil needs and so prices retail fuel at import parity rates.
With the global surge in energy prices, the cost of producing petrol, diesel and other petroleum products also went up for oil companies in India.
They raised petrol and diesel prices by Rs 10 a litre in just over a fortnight beginning March 22 but hit a pause button soon after as the move faced criticism and the opposition parties asked the government to cut taxes instead.
India imports most of its oil from a group of countries called the ‘OPEC +’ (i.e, Iran, Iraq, Saudi Arabia, Venezuela, Kuwait, United Arab Emirates, Russia, etc), which produces 40% of the world’s crude oil.
As they have the power to dictate fuel supply and prices, their decision of limiting the global supply reduces supply in India, thus raising prices
The government charges about 167% tax (excise) on petrol and 129% on diesel as compared to US (20%), UK (62%), Italy and Germany (65%).
The abominable excise duty is 2/3rd of the cost, and the base price, dealer commission and freight form the rest.
Here is an approximate break-up (in Rs):
a)Base Price | 39 |
b)Freight | 0.34 |
c) Price Charged to Dealers = (a+b) | 39.34 |
d) Excise Duty | 40.17 |
e) Dealer Commission | 4.68 |
f) VAT | 25.35 |
g) Retail Selling Price | 109.54 |
Looked closely, much of the cost of petrol and diesel is due to higher tax rate by govt, specifically excise duty.
So the question is why government is not reducing the prices ?
India, being a developing country, it does require gigantic amount of funding for its infrastructure projects as well as welfare schemes.
However, we as a society is yet to be tax-compliant. Many people evade the direct tax and that’s the reason why govt’s hands are tied. Govt. needs the money to fund various programs and at the same time it is not generating enough revenue from direct taxes.
That’s the reason why, govt is bumping up its revenue through higher indirect taxes such as GST or excise duty as in the case of petrol and diesel.
Direct taxes are progressive as it taxes according to an individuals’ income however indirect tax such as excise duty or GST are regressive in the sense that the poorest of the poor and richest of the rich have to pay the same amount.
Does not matter, if you are an auto-driver or owner of a Mercedes, end of the day both pay the same price for petrol/diesel-that’s why it is regressive in nature.
But unlike direct tax where tax evasion is rampant, indirect tax can not be evaded due to their very nature and as long as huge no of Indians keep evading direct taxes, indirect tax such as excise duty will be difficult for the govt to reduce, because it may reduce the revenue and hamper may programs of the govt.