'Govt had decided to cancel S-band tender last year'

The government had last year decided to cancel the 2005 agreement between ISRO arm Antrix and private company Devas Multimedia, Maharashtra Chief Minister Prithviraj Chavan said today.

"I remember that this issue came up in 2010 and it was decided to cancel the tender," Chavan, the former Science and Technology minister, told reporters in Sangli.

"In 2010, when I was member of the (Space) Commission, this issue came up. I recall that some decisions on the issue were taken in 2005. The Commission had decided to cancel (the tender)... I am sure it must have been cancelled. But I am not aware of this...Because I did not handle the issue," he said.

"This issue came up before us when I was a member of the Commission but I did not handle the space department issues," Chavan added.

Recent reports said the CAG has been scrutinising a 2005 deal between Antrix, the commercial arm of the Indian Space Research Organisation (ISRO), and Devas multimedia.

Earlier in the day, the Prime Minister's Office had denied media reports alleging that the government had incurred losses in allocation of S-band spectrum, saying no decision has been taken on the issue and hence charges of revenue loss were without basis.

Media reports had stated that the Department of Space, which comes directly under the Prime Minister, had allocated 70 MHz of S-Band spectrum to Devas Multimedia at Rs 1,000 crore for 20 years. According to the reports, the actual value of this was estimated to be around Rs 2 lakh crore.