Reliance Jio has shot off a strongly-worded letter to Cellular Operators Association of India (COAI), blasting the telecom lobby for writing a letter to the government regarding an "alleged unprecedented" crisis in the sector and acting in the sole interests of Bharti Airtel and Vodafone-Idea.

Read the full text of Reliance Jio's letter to COAI

COAI on Tuesday urged a newly formed panel of secretaries to prescribe immediate relief measures to address the Supreme Court ruling on the so-called adjusted gross revenue (AGR) issue first, given the 'urgency of the situation'.

Here are the top five highlights of the letter:

1. Jio has taken strong exception to the COAI dispatching a late-night communication to the government without waiting for its comments, Jio in a strongly-worded letter to the association's Director General Rajan Mathews said an unlikely event of failure of two operators will not have any impact on competition and the Centre's Digital India agenda. Jio has accused COAI of "serious breach of trust" and having a "prejudiced mindset completely laced with one-sided thought process".

2. COAI in its letter to the government has said that in absence of immediate relief by the Centre, two of the three private mobile operators -- Airtel and Vodafone Idea which provide services to 63 percent of the current subscriber base -- will face "unprecedented crisis".

Attacking COAI's position, Jio said: "We are taking a strong umbrage at COAI exploiting the legitimate payout obligations to create an alarmist propaganda for the doom of the telecom sector in the country."

3. Jio has said it disagrees with the "threatening and blackmailing tone" of COAI and accused the older operators of not investing sufficiently in the sector and "shedding crocodile tears" by claiming financial stress.

4. Jio has also said the operators have not shown any inclination to modernise networks, while Jio promoters have made an equity investment of Rs 1.75 lakh crore.

"Therefore the failure of these operators cannot be blamed on the Government," Jio argued

5. Jio has said that COAI's observations were not only factually incorrect and unwarranted but tantamount to contempt of court.

"COAI's intent of using this as an opportunity to seek non-enforcement of the SC judgement and asking for relief is strongly objected by Reliance Jio...These operators have the capacity and enough monetisation possibility to comfortably pay government dues," Jio said.

Disclosure: Reliance Industries, the promoter of Reliance Jio, also controls Network18, the parent company of CNBCTV18.com.

First Published:Oct 30, 2019 7:14 PM IST