On February 2, 2012, the Supreme Court of India cancelled all 122 second-generation (2G) telecom licences issued on or after January 10, 2008 by the Department of Telecommunication (DoT). This judgment, along with the announcement of the National Telecom Policy-2012, forced the DoT to rethink the issue of pricing spectrum, which was earlier bundled with 2G licences. First, was re-auctioning required? If so, what should be the minimum reserve price? Should DoT follow a uniform pricing strategy for all the incumbents, including those whose licences were cancelled? How could it strike a balance between investor apathy and the government’s objective of increasing rural tele-density, given the possibility of a tariff hike after the refarming of spectrum?
Since its inception in 1997, the National Pharmaceutical Pricing Authority (NPPA) had been trying to control drug prices through various supply-side initiatives, which had yielded limited success. This time around, NPPA had announced a new initiative, which was aimed at educating consumers about the inexpensive alternatives for medicines prescribed by doctors. By giving consumers information about various brands and their prices, NPPA hoped to offer customer self-selection of drugs through short message service (SMS, or “texting”). NPPA appeared to be operating on the premise that customer self-selection could result in self-regulation of consumption, thereby giving greater control of health care expenses to customers. Given the huge penetration of mobile phones in India and the gradual reduction of various mobile service charges, text-based service looked feasible. However, the proposed system had met with strong opposition from other stakeholders, such as doctors and chemists. Besides, the large-scale adoption of the proposed service was being questioned as the decision-making process for medicines was very complex.