Conflicting Provisions Create Difficulty in Radio Frequency Policy Implementation

December 29: A conflict is seen in the government policy adopted after the first amendment of Radio Frequency (Pricing and Distribution) Policy. The additional merger related policy prepared by radio Frequency Policy Determination Committee under the chairmanship of Minister for Information and Communication (MoIC) is conflicted to the another system of the same policy. On the one hand, the merger policy encourages merger in order to bring down the number of service providers which is more compare to the telecommunication market of Nepal. On the other hand, the policy also opens an alternative way for the entrance of new service provider.

As per the Telecommunications Act 2053, a separate committee under the Chairmanship of Communication Minister has been formulated to take decision on policy formulation and distribution of radio frequency. The policy formulated by the committee exercising the right given by the Act has been implemented as law by the Authority. Thus, the policy used as law being ambiguous is absurd, said experts. “The implementation of conflicting policy is challenging,” said Manohar Prasad Bhattarai, Experts of information and communication.

Meanwhile, Ananda Raj Khanal, Senior Director of NTA disagrees regarding to the conflicting policy. “As the mechanisms of merger and entrance of new service provider have different objectives,  it should not be tagged as conflicted,” he opined. He added that the merger policy is adopted for service providers lacking competitive capacity. “It does not mean halting entrance of service provider with competitive capacity.”