Cabinet Secy to chair panel to decide auction

The government has set up a four-member committee to decide the successful bidders at the conclusion of the auction for third generation (3G) and broadband wireless access (BWA) spectrum.

Cabinet Secretary K M Chandrasekhar would preside. Finance Secretary Ashok Chawla, Planning Commission Secretary Sudha Pillai and Telecom Secretary P J Thomas are the others.

The 3G auction started on April 9 and is expected to take one-two weeks, followed by auction for BWA spectrum. The process would end when all the eligible bids are in and all the blocks in the 22 circles are covered. Subsequently, frequency blocks would be allotted to successful bidders through random allocation.

The ‘provisional result’ would be made public subject to the approval of the government, the department of telecommunications (DoT) had proposed in a note to the Cabinet Secretary. The provisional result would go to an inter-ministerial committee (of officials from the finance and telecom ministries), along with audit trail details, and then to a committee of secretaries.

“It is important that the government approves the result of the auction at the earliest possible time following the end of auction in order to eliminate any uncertainty and speculation. The meeting of inter-ministerial group for scrutiny of provisional auction result and the Committee of Secretaries would have to be convened at a short notice,” DoT said.