In the second part of our interview with Sirish Purohit, Director, Midas Communications, Chennai, he throws light on the telecommunication scenario in the city today.

I think Chennai telecom has done very well. Especially in the past 4-5years. I mean, Phone is practically on demand here. The WLLs (Wireless in Local Loop) will be helpful to get quick connections. Even today there is a time delay in getting phone connections, say at least 2-3 months. In some areas there might be problems with the availability of cables. The terrain might be difficult for laying cables. To give phone connections overnight Chennai telecom can do with the WLLs.

This is all because of compartmentalising things which have overlapping areas. This is one of the cases where the policy has to be more open. What is happening is that you have a rule for cellular telephony operators. You have a framework under which the cellular telephony phones licenses are given. There is some tariff, revenue sharing and license fee associated with it. Now there is another group, which offers fixed telephony services and they have a different set of rules. By regulation, these two - mobile telephony and fixed telephony are different. Now we are entering an area where technology offers certain overlapping areas. If you ask me for my reactions on this, I would say, regulations are not in tune with the technological changes. They should find regulations, which would either have an equal playing field or if you have a situation where the same service is offered in a different mechanism (because of technological changes), then change the regulations.

No. I feel as far as the telecom sector is concerned, it has not helped at all. We had 6-7 years of liberalisation now and less than 2 lakh lines all over India! Take the example of Tamil Nadu. It is one of the biggest profit making centres in India as telephony circle. But we do not have a basic private telephony operator in Tamil Nadu. What kind of a policy is this? This policy has failed. This is going in a crazy direction. In my opinion they should open up the telephony access. The licenses should be given not at the state level, but perhaps at the district levels. Then there would be a vertical proliferation of the telecommunications access. DoT has already operations in the major cities. It is only the smaller towns that face the problem of communicating with the rest of the world. A statewide licensing helps to connect only the major cities - Madurai, Coimbatore; not Erode or Salem. This will not change the telephone scenario drastically.

With IT today, the capital requirement has come down for an entrepreneur. As a matter of fact, in 1987-88 when we started some freelance work , we suddenly realised that to start a business all you needed was a P.C. and a telephone line which at year 2000 prices, works out to Rs 50,000. Earlier, with the licence Raj, monopolies built up considerably and these had huge capital outlays. To challenge them, one needed an equally demanding high investement. Now technology has changed all this. Small businesses have become viable growth models.

Oh sure! Of course. For the past 2-3 years Chennai is the best place to be in. Its advantages far outweigh its disadvantages now. Its a calm and quiet place. Work culture is good here. Crime is under control. Weather, you can't help it. If I could change one thing in Chennai, it would be the weather.

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