NEW DELHI: The government has begun work on the new telecom policy for which it will seek views of the public. This could be the first such move by the telecom department , communications minister Manoj Sinha said.The process of seeking public opinion through an open consultation process will begin shortly as the aim is to make the policy consumer centric, even as views of industry, academia and experts from India and overseas would be considered. “We will be doing public consultation for the first time on the new telecom policy, getting the views of the people since they are also stakeholders,” the minister said.“We have created a team of 50 people within India and overseas who are all working on the policy,” Sinha told ET. While the groundwork for the new policy would begin after nearly five years when the previous National Telecom Policy ( NTP ) came into effect in 2012, the new policy is expected to create a roadmap for the growth of the sector and setting the base for adoption of nextgen technologies. Taking a view of the large populace using these services would add another dimension to the contours of the policy.Till now the views have been restricted to carriers, telecom service provider associations, tower companies and some representation from civil society. Under NTP 2012 – the new policy’s predecessor – the government undertook several reforms, including delinking license from spectrum, specifying spectrum trading and sharing norms, full mobile number portability and making large quantities of spectrum available for purchase through auctions.Former telecom secretary JS Deepak said in November last year that the government planned to start work on the policy by April 2017, but a number of targets were still left unachieved under the NTP 2012.The ministry at that time had set targets of having 2 mbps speed for customers, abolition of roaming charges across the country, promoting use of white spaces, simplifying network rollout issues and formation of the National Mobile Property Registry among others. A few have been resolved. For instance, rules under right of way were issued earlier this year. For others like setting minimum data speeds, the Telecom Regulatory Authority of India (Trai) has issued consultation papers.The consultations for the new telecom policy is set to begin amid intense competition between new entrant Reliance Jio — which has captured over 110 million subscribers in a few months on the back of free voice and free or cheap data services – and incumbent players Bharti Airtel, Vodafone India and Idea Cellular, that are playing catch-up even as their profits go into red, adding to the existing financial stress of the sector.The government has already set up an inter-ministerial group (IMG) to look into the financial health of the sector which is laden with a debt of nearly .`5 lakh crore, even as the banking sector pegs the debt at Rs 7.29 lakh crore including other borrowings and bank guarantees.The minister, who met CEOs and promoters of top telcos the week before, said the government would look into the recommendations of the IMG that are expected to come within a fortnight.