At a time the telecom sector is undergoing its biggest ever crisis, Bharti Enterprises Chairman and the pioneer of India’s telecom sector, Sunil Bharti Mittal speaks to ET’s Anandita Singh Mankotia about how the Supreme Court and the government needs to take a sympathetic view towards the sector on matters of AGR and multiple levies and why the country needs to ensure Vodafone Idea survives. Edited excerpts:Tariffs have risen to some extent but the sector is still under stress. It is a rare situation where we have written to the Trai saying please regulate us, because the industry is killing itself.Tariffs on an average have to eventually reach Rs 300 per person month which means customers at low end pay about Rs 100 and at high end pay between Rs 450-500 , ie when they are consuming a lot. However, before that we should get to an ARPU of about Rs 200, a 70% jump from today’s Rs 128 so that at the lower end the Arpu is about 75. There are people who can easily afford Rs 500 but they are being forced to pay Rs 250, as telecom operators are fighting like cats and dogs in the market.You cannot get to Rs 200 and then Rs 300 without the intervention of the Trai. We have been killing each other for three and a half years. Floor for tariffs is the only way to get sanity in the market. Also, the fact that the three of us have written to the regulator says something. First time COAI has an agreement on what to write.Nick Read and Kumar Mangalam Birla both have made that statement and it is in that backdrop I am saying that we need three plus one operator (three private and one public sector). It will be very self-serving for me to say that 2 plus one operators (two private and one public sector) is fine. I was the first private sector guy in telecom, and from my perspective I think India needs 3 plus one model. It is the 2nd largest market in the world. China has three operators, America has four operators. There is massive need of telecom for PM’s Digital India vision. Telecom has seen a brutal price war in the last three years and the result is broken balance sheets, 8 companies collapsed, went bankrupt or were sold for nothing. What we have now must be protected and for that the government must do whatever it can to support in whichever way they can. The govt must have a sympathetic view towards the industry.Situation is dire. It is a matter of survival for everyone. Vodafone is in losses, Airtel is in losses, BSNL is in losses. There is one competitor who has unlimited access to finances, I wouldn’t comment on that but the situation is bad. Moratorium of two years can only help Vodafone Idea if there is an AGR relief. Otherwise, it is just deferment with interest. Lower the taxes, and find ways and means to support the sector in one form or the other and most importantly, the honourable SC needs to look at our review petition from the point of view that there are unintended consequences and lots of other companies including public sector are coming into this unreasonable AGR definition which could have never been the intention. So, have we failed to explain to properly? We should take some part of the blame on our legal team. My view is DoT was equally unaware of the ramifications it could have had.We are holding out, fighting it out in the market place. I would say we are in a better situation, we are in the middle of raising funds. However, network expansion, investment in newer technologies, bidding for 5G spectrum and then building 5G ecosystem which India deserves, need the industry to become viable. Tariffs need to go up.Levies. I have repeatedly said, you can’t tax telecom services like sin tax ! 30% of revenues are going in one or the other form of government levies, that must come down. Our hope was that the committee of secretaries would have recommended some reduction in levies. That has not happened. We urge the govt to take it up in a separate forum.I mentioned to the secretary telecom that the Licence Fee, spectrum usage charge need to go down. Input tax credit is with the finance ministry. I believe that it will be taken up by the GST council, but given the situation of finances, I really doubt anything will happen there. Even if they cannot refund it, they can at least offset it. Rs 36,000 crore, this is sizeable sum of money, we get no interest on it but we pay interest on it.AGR has been a bolt from the blue. It is a big bolt or jolt to the industry when already the chips were down and this has come on top of that. Our legal team were not able to persuade the Honourable Supreme court on the unreasonableness of DoTs AGR interpretation but equally, I think DoT didn’t realise the unintended consequences on the larger ecosystem. I mean Gail, Railtel, PGCIL, DMRC everyone is impacted. Now you will charge licence fee of telecom services on sale of gas ? Ramifications were huge and we hope the honourable SC will consider this issue.We have gone through several crisis but this is the most difficult time for the industry. This is a time when digital ecosystem is most required in the country. It is an odd situation, We need a digital ecosystem to support new age industries and the telecom industry which was to play a crucial role in that is in the crisis.