Tuesday, October 3 2006 11:07 Hrs (IST) - World Time -

New Delhi: The Communications Ministry is understood to have sought time till February 2, next year for implementing guidelines that permit up to 74 per cent FDI in telecom sector instead of the December 31 deadline set by the Government.

According to highly placed sources, Communications and IT Minister Dayanidhi Maran has sought four months time so to enable resolution of inter-ministerial differences and addressing issues concerning telecom operators, particularly security aspect and different set of rules for firms with FDI up to 49 per cent and those with FDI between 49-74 per cent.

Immediately after the Cabinet meeting last week, Finance Minister P Chidambaram had announced that an extension of three months till December 31 has been given to Department of Telecom (DoT) to resolve the pending issues.

Sources said the issue could go to the empowered Group of Ministers on FDI headed by Defence Minister Pranab Mukharjee for early resolution of differences.

The original Press Note 5 that laid out the FDI guidelines for telecom sector was issued in November last year with four months time to companies to abide by the norms. But having failed to ensure compliance, the government gave two subsequent extension of three months each.

This is the fourth time that an extension has been granted, but whether it would be three months or four months would be clear only after the notification is issued.

DoT has admitted that as many as 63 applications for Unified Access Service Licenses were being adversely affected because of the existing Press Note 5. Also, a number of applications for long distance services (NLD and ILD) are not coming forward due to this.