new delhi the woes of the telecom sector was highlighted by the economic survey 201718 which said that the industry is passing through stress due to a huge debt pile tariff war and irrational spectrum coststhe survey document tabled in parliament on monday called for policy measures to minimise overbidding of assets during auctions while auctions in case of spectrum as also coal and renewables led to transparency and avoided rentseeking they may have led to a winners curse whereby firms overbid for assets leading to adverse consequences in each of the sectors the survey noted1945economic survey are acche din finally hereit also noted that fdi equity inflows apriloctober in top 10 sectors grew by 15 as compared to 08 growth in total fdi equity inflows mainly due to higher fdi in two sectors telecom and computer software and hardwareread alsoindias son obsession finds mention in pink economic surveythe document tabled by finance minister arun jaitley in parliament recommends that indians confront the societal metapreference for a son observing that the adverse sex ratio of females to males has led to 63 million missing womenhowever it is important to note that the telecom sector is going through a stress period with growing losses debt pile price war reduced revenue and irrational spectrum costs the survey saidthe survey in an apparent reference to reliance jio said that lowcost data services by a new entrant has disrupted the market and the revenue of incumbent players has fallenthe crisis has also severely impacted investors lenders partners and vendors of these telecom companies the survey saidthe survey recommended rationalisation of the cost of spectrum and other assets procured through auctionsthe lesson is that policy design must minimise these costs wherever possible more specifically there should be greater reliance on using incentives and carrots than on sticks the survey saidit identified bottlenecks created in the sector with rise in legal disputes it is noteworthy that in two cases telecommunications and electricity the explosion in pendency resulted from interventions by the supreme court the survey saidit noted that the government is in the process of formulating the new telecom policy which is targeted to be released in 2018the major themes that the policy shall try to address include regulatory and licensing frameworks impacting the sector connectivity for all quality of services ease of doing business and absorption of new technologies including 5g and internet of things iot