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Apply proven policies in telecom and electricity to rev up the economy.
Shyam Ponappa | August 4, 2022
Does infrastructure spending promote economic growth, or is it the other way around? The arguments go back to questions such as whether building America’s railroads in the 1850s led to growth, or the reverse. While the costs and benefits of building transportation may be contested, partly because of what is measured and what is not, one positive linkage that has emerged is between improvements in information and communications technology and economic growth.
Potentially useful findings are given below.
1. A World Bank study (2021) reviewed the contribution of three categories of infrastructure to growth from 1992-2017: Transport, electricity, and telecommunications. The study covered 87 countries out of 189, because of missing data and to ensure a balanced panel. One finding was that infrastructure, especially electricity generation and telecommunications, significantly affected economic growth. This effect was larger more recently (1992-2017) than before (1970-1991), and developing economies experienced stronger effects than industrialised economies.1
The researchers considered the contribution of physical capital, human capital, electricity, roads, railways, mobile phones and telephones to gross domestic product (GDP). The first principal component derived from these that explained most of the variation, comprising mainly electricity, mobile phones, and land-line phones, was characterised as the telecommunications and electricity factor. The second principal component, comprising largely roads and railways, was characterised as the transport factor. These factors roughly kept pace with population except mobile phones, which increased very significantly, driving the increase in the first principal component.
The chart of the GDP response to the two principal components demonstrates the effect of the primarily electricity-and-telecommunications principal component PC1, and of the primarily transport principal component PC2. The latter initially reduced output for some years. The implication is a need for policies that prioritise telecommunications, including broadband and internet, and electricity.
2. An Asian Development Bank publication on digitalisation and economic performance in India and China found that the internet and mobile density have a significant impact on economic growth.2
3. A study of factors that drove the surge in India’s service exports by researchers at the Institute of Economic Growth and Symbiosis found that attributes that affect the highest service exports (computers, communication and other services were nearly three times the traditional service exports in 2013), were driven by teledensity, together with financial sector development, human capital, and R&D expenditure (chart 2 ).3
The impact of telecommunications and electricity together with strengths in computers and communications services points to India’s needs: Prioritise enabling policies for telecommunications infrastructure for broadband and internet (integrated with the rest: Electricity and transportation, water and sewerage, logistics/transport, financial support, taxation, and so on). Parallel support is required to develop local ecosystems for equipment, which would have to be imported otherwise.
Effect on Policies
What matters is how these conclusions affect government’s policies, because policies and regulations permit or constrain what we do and how we live. The solutions required ideally are for overall community needs, and not for what individuals, sectors, or stakeholders might need, as the consideration below indicates.
5G Auction & Prospects
Now that the government has bagged Rs 1.5 trillion from the 5G auction, what are the prospects for growth? If this amount is channelled to support BSNL/MTNL, with more government intervention to make them profitable, consider the probable outcomes.
(a) Things could turn out as planned, resulting in a strong telecommunications sector with four operators propelling growth. BSNL/MTNL certainly need support for their important, widespread services. The issue is whether they can be profitable, given their role. On the one hand are their market position in coverage/saturation and diminished share, while on the other are their responsibilities for essential services for strategic purposes and in difficult, unremunerative locations.
It is unreasonable to expect profitable performance in competition with private operators who can cherry-pick their markets. The very idea that governance through providing essential services must make profits is untenable, as it is for security, defence, or disaster management. Yet, this expectation has led to price cuts that have ended in a race to the bottom. Such pricing is a disservice, because it constrains investment in services, and thereby overall country capacity, to low-quality bottom-feeding. We expect and get low prices, but are saddled with low quality. The sector cannot build high-quality, reliable services, and is falling farther behind global service levels. India cannot possibly compete burdened with such self-imposed handicaps.
(b) Another possible outcome is that there will be unsustainable price cuts as before, with unfair access to spectrum (announced), and unfair competition from corporations. The losses could be perpetual, with the sector and the economy in shambles.
The Alternative for Policymakers
Instead of continuing with unreasonable and ineffective practices that prevent us from realising our potential, even now, the government can change policies to capitalise on our strengths of being imaginative and resourceful, with the capacity to perform well with good systems and processes.
The success of NTP-99 can be repeated, by converting auction payments to revenue-share, this time for spectrum instead of licence fees. The difference is that operator dues can be financed from actual revenues, and not loans on anticipated revenues. This will not only enable immediate investment in networks and services, but as with NTP-99, is likely to result in substantial growth, with much higher government collections, and as a multiplier across sectors.
Legislation can be framed to convert spectrum auction payments to a reasonable percentage of revenues, as for licences. Instead of destabilising markets to favour BSNL/MTNL or corporations, insights can be applied and best-practice regulations can be adapted for our circumstances. The introduction of shared infrastructure through two or more mandatory consortiums led by corporate entities, with BSNL/MTNL as a strategic stakeholder ensuring national security and public interest, will enable even greater leveraging of network assets.
Shyam (no space) Ponappa at gmail dot com
(1): Timilsina G. et al: https://openknowledge.worldbank.org
(2): D Sahoo et al: https://www.adb.org/publications
(3): Pravakar Sahoo & Ranjan Kumar Dash: "What Drives India's Surge in Service Exports?"
