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Minister defends allocation of microwave spectrum, calls allegations baseless
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SME Times News Bureau | 27 Jan, 2019
Dismissing allegations of wrongdoing and mismanagement in allocating
microwave spectrum in 2015, Union Communications Minister Manoj Sinha on
Wednesday said that the DoT (Department of Telecom) had allocated the
spectrum to Reliance Jio and Sistema on an administrative basis after
the Supreme Courts order of 2012.
"The Supreme Court order of
2012 was on access spectrum and not on backhaul spectrum and not only
one service provider, but whoever was genuine, we allotted microwave
access spectrum administratively both before and after the order," Sinha
told reporters here.
"Before the Supreme Court order two TSPs
(telecom service providers) were allotted and after the order Reliance
Jio and Sistema were allotted," he added.
The minister's defence
came after the Comptroller and Auditor General (CAG) in a report
submitted to the Parliament on January 8 had said that the allocation of
a set of spectrum in 2015 was done on a first-cum-first-served (FCFS)
basis, in contradiction to the recommendations of a committee, even as
101 applications for microwave (MW) spectrum were pending with the
government.
The report had said: "It was also found that
allotment of MWA to Access Service providers was withheld by DoT since
June 2010 and allotment against only one application was made in
December 2015. There were 101 applications pending till November 2016
for allotment of MWA."
The CAG had also observed that spectrum mismanagement by the DoT had led to a loss of Rs 560 crore to the government exchequer.
Following the submission of the report, the Congress last week demanded a probe into the matter.
Further,
Sinha on Wednesday said that the Telecom Regulatory Authority of India
(TRAI) also had recommended for process of allotment and as per that the
DoT had notified its policy in 2015, out of all the applications.
The
valid applications were given an option that if the government takes
another decision in the future then on a retrospective basis the
companies would have to give the payment, and only two firms applied
after that who were allocated the spectrum administratively, he added.
"So I want to say with utmost responsibility that this allegation is baseless and has no evidence," he stressed.
The
minister said that backhaul spectrum has not been auctioned so far and
there is also no proposal or consideration for the same.
Defending
the decision on deferred spectrum liability Sinha said that extending
the period of making payments to 16 years, up from 10 years would bring
an additional Rs 74,446 crore to the exchequer.
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