It was late but the government was finally caught in a frenzy during the year 2000 to reform the giant Telecom sector in anticipation of its becoming the country's growth engine for the new millenium for which it took a slew of measures to open the area of hitherto state monopoly. Opening up of the long distance telephony, lifting of any restrictions on number of players in different telephony disciplines, advancing of date for ending monopoly of overseas communication and transforming gigantic telecom services department into a corporation were among the highpoints of the government's single-minded reform drive. But the year gone by was marked by tremendous opposition to government moves from political parties, trade unions and government employees as also the early private entrants in the sector who saw the changes as signs of gloom.
Consequently the sector witnessed a nearly year-long situation of industrial unrest and frequent strikes by one or the other PSUs or government departments in the sector. Notwithstanding the pressures, government corporatised Department of Telecom (DoT) services into Bharat Sanchar Nigam (BSNL) and opened bandwidth for overseas communication to private sector to send right signals the world over that India is the destination for the future. Bureau Report