Airtel CEO Gopal Vittal calls for enabling policy to attract investments, says IUC not a pricing tool

Gopal Vittal, CEO, Bharti AirtelNSE 0.12 % for India has called for an enabling policy framework, including reducing the cost of doing business, to attract mega investments needed to drive the digital transformation. He also welcomed the news of spectrum pricing reforms being underway.

Speaking at the India Mobile Congress on Tuesday, Vittal said that interconnect usage charge or IUC had nothing to do with tariffs and was a bilateral arrangement between operators.

Vittal’s statement comes in the backdrop of Reliance Jio Infocomm’s recent move to charge its users 6 paisa a minute for all the calls dialed outside its network to rival networks to recover the IUC it pays its rivals, until the telecom regulator abolishes the charge.