New Delhi: The auction of 3G (third
generation) licences could be delayed, as the Defence Ministry
is firm that it does not have any idle spectrum to vacate as
being claimed by the Department of Telecom.
Finance Minister Pranab Mukherjee met Telecom Minister A
Raja and Defence Minister A K Antony yesterday in an effort to
resolve the issue, highly placed sources said, adding that
there was no consensus on the spectrum slots to be auctioned.
"DoT has said that they have 3G spectrum but the Ministry
of Defence is not accepting it, as they are saying the radio
frequency is being used by them and cannot be vacated," senior
DoT officials said.
The meeting, chaired by Mukherjee, was also attended by
Cabinet Secretary K M Chandrasekhar, Sam Pitroda, Advisor to
Prime Minister Manmohan Singh on infrastructure, innovation
and information and telecom, defence and finance secretaries,
they said.
Mukherjee, Raja and Antony are likely to meet again
tomorrow. This, however, could not be confirmed.
Pitroda is understood to have made a presentation and
submitted a working paper on different frequency bands which
can be vacated by the defence, but the latter was not
convinced, they said.
The auction of 3G spectrum was scheduled to commence on
January 14 next year and the government has estimated a
revenue of about Rs 35,000 crore from sale of spectrum in the
current financial year.
Telecom Minister A Raja had written two letters to
Mukherjee seeking his intervention to get the spectrum vacated
from the Defence Ministry.
On Defence Ministry's claim that they had released two
slots of 3G spectrum but the same was not disclosed by the
DoT, the officials denied any such development, and feared
that a continued deadlock may force the country miss the
auction deadline once again.
In fact, foreign telecom companies stayed away from the
pre-bid conference called yesterday to discuss the blueprint
for 3G (third generation) mobile spectrum auction, while
domestic players were riddled with doubts regarding regulation
and availability of airwaves.
All existing domestic players -- Airtel, Vodafone Essar,
Idea Cellular, Reliance Communications, Tata Teleservices and
new licensees like Unitech Wireless, Shyam Sistema, STel,
Etisalat DB were present, but there was no certainty about
their participation in the auctioning process.
Leading players -- Bharti Airtel and Vodafone Essar --
have sought clarity on policy matters, including about the
impact of the pending TRAI recommendations on 3G spectrum
auction and chances of increase in number of slots for auction
in circles if defence ministry releases spectrum.
Bureau Report
First Published: Tuesday, November 17, 2009, 18:50