This is what CEOs of Airtel, Vodafone and Idea were served at a meeting with the telecom minister

It was one of the most important meetings for the telecom industry where CEOs of top telecom companies in the country met with the newly appointed Telecom Minister, Manoj Sinha. Hold on, we will tell you what was discussed in the meeting but before that see what the top CEOs were served.

Yes, like in all meetings that the CEOs attend all over the world there are refreshments and there were some in this meeting too. Only difference is it was widely different from the usual hors d’oeuvre of the corporate world. Gopal Vittal of Airtel, Sunil Sood of Vodafone, Himanshu Kapania of Idea along with other telecom CEOs were part of this very crucial meeting but first here’s what they were served. A) Cheap pineapple pastry B) Coleslaw Sandwich wrapped in cellophane sheet, C) Bengal gram, complete with plastic spoons and ketchup in sachets. Now wouldn’t it be a treat to see India’s top CEOs teething open their ketchup packets.

The corporate world is light-years ahead on the kind of refreshments served in their meetings but situation in these sarkari offices still look like they were serving refreshments at a six year olds birthday party... in the 60s. In the two hour long meeting, the CEOs had no choice but to nibble on the refreshments (if we can call it that) some to satiate their hunger and some just plain out of respect. Most of the CEOs stuck to the Bengal gram, few braved the pastry but no one touched the sandwich, probably too much work to free it from the clutches of the cellophane bags that they came wrapped in.

Coming to the meeting, it was an extremely crucial meeting between the new telecom minister, telecom department officials and the telecom CEOs. Telecom operators voiced their concern on all the major issues in the sector like telecom being a highly taxed sector, payment method for upcoming spectrum auction, e-KYC norms for acquisition of subscribers and of course call drops. Issue of call drops was discussed in a big way as telecom operators on June 10th this year had committed to setting up 60,000 towers in 100 days in order to deal with the issue of call drops. The new telecom minister said out of the total 60,000 towers, so far telcos have installed 48,000 towers. Telecom minister said “Targets given to the telcos on call drops progress is satisfactory but telcos will have to put more efforts to make the consumers feel the progress made.” The telecom operators also discussed many policy developments like spectrum sharing and trading with the minister.

Sounds like a very important meeting, so we got on it full swing and decided to get a chef’s opinion in, Chef Saby of Lavaash by Saby says “Corporate world is very particular about the refreshments served during the meetings as they speak volumes about the company. Refreshments vary from bite size Granola with walnuts and cranberries to nut crusted fresh palm fruit. And sandwiches and pastries are a big no. Fresh fruit juices will have to be a part of the spread. Basically the idea is to keep it healthy as these meetings can be very stressful.”

While we are sure this particular meeting was stressful but the snacks were far from healthy. And all these extremely key issues in the industry were discussed over pineapple pastries and sandwiches which were far from the bite size pops these CEOs are used to. Just saying.