There's likelihood of a good 5G auction in January-March: Peeyush Vaish, Deloitte India

Peeyush Vaish of Deloitte India tells ET Now's Nayantara Rai how the government's latest aid for the telecom sector is likely to play out. Edited excerpts from his interview:

Nayantara Rai: Vodafone Idea has been in the most financially precarious situation. It owes about Rs 1.8 lakh crore of which nearly Rs 60,000 crore is AGR. If 5G auctions happen, will Jio and Bharti Airtel consolidate their positions further?
Peeyush Vaish: Historically, operators who survive in the market are the ones who have been consistent with the technologies in the market. My personal view is that with this moratorium being given, in the short run at least, there is cash flow available with all the operators.

Now that the government has also made it very clear about the timeline, we will hopefully see an auction coming in the period of January to March 2022.


I personally believe that all the operators will go and bid at the 5G auctions. The cash flow that I talked about, albeit a short-term one, will help the telcos in two things:

a) Bidding for the 5G licences which I think is definitely a necessity for all of them to survive, and

b) It will also help in the roll-out of the infrastructure, because both of these are going to go in tandem.

As for the four-year timeline being granted by the government, it is by no means a short period. I think it is relatively a well-defined timeline. The operators will probably work over these four years to really get their balance sheets right — whether it is in terms of pricing, or whether it is in terms of getting their balance sheet right.

In my view, four years is a good enough time in the medium term to get their act together in terms of pricing etc., and reap benefits out of it.

As for the 5G spectrum auctions, I personally believe that we will see a good auction coming up in January-March.