Sunil Mittal: "Airtel will not shy away from raising tariffs"

Bharti Airtel Chairman Sunil Bharti Mittal on Monday said it is now time for the government to attend to the issues faced by telecom industry. 

"People are consuming average 16GB of data per user per month. It is time that tariffs do take a tick up to make the industry viable and, more importantly, have decent and appropriate returns on capital to grow into more technology areas, to roll out more networks, and become more viable model of sustainability in the future," Mittal said.

"The taxes on this industry remain high. For every Rs 100 of revenue, Rs 35 go in various forms of levies. We hope that as we step up and do our part, the government will also favourably look at some of the genuine demands of the industry enabling a multiplier effect and positive outcome," he said.

He also said, Airtel will not shy away from raising tariffs. He argued that tariff changes effected by Airtel over the last few months are a "testimony" that the company has indeed "run out of patience".

After being asked if Airtel will take a lead in raising tariffs in future, Mittal said that the company has already been doing it in a limited manner by pushing up base tariffs to Rs 79.

"Can this go to Rs 99 eventually, my answer is yes, the question is when...In the end, we are also bound by market forces, we can't be outlier beyond a point. You can be having some premium given strength of the brand but you can''t go beyond a point where you start to hurt yourself," Mittal observed.

Airtel will be "vigilant" and "happy to take small baby steps which could even be first and foremost compared to others", he pointed out.