Sibal meets Tata, Ambani, Mittal; seeks views on sector

Amid a spate of controversies in the sector, Telecom Minister Kapil Sibal today met Sunil Mittal of Bharti, Anil Ambani of RCom and Ratan Tata of TTSL and is understood to have sought their views on various issues ranging from 2G scam to the future allocation of spectrum.

The Minister lent his ears for nearly 45 minutes each of the three top industrialists in the telecom sector.

The meetings remained closed door and no comment was available on the deliberations from either the telcos or the Department of Telecom (DoT).

The meeting comes at a time when the sector is grappling with enormous uncertainties with regard to spectrum allocation policies and CBI probe into the decisions taken by Telecom Ministry between 2001 and 2008.

This means all incumbent operators including Bharti Airtel, Vodafone, Idea, Tata Teleservices and Reliance Communications would be part of the probe, besides new telecom operators who were given licences and 2G spectrum in 2008 by former telecom minister A Raja.

Raja resigned last month following government auditor CAG's report that found irregularities in the 2008 allocation of 2G spectrum.

Sources also said that the Minister raised concern over corporate rivalry and its negative impact on the sector.

The service providers are understood to have expressed concerns over Trai's latest report on spectrum management issues, in which the regulator had asked the government to charge additional spectrum beyond 6.2 MHz at the rate of 3G for which auction was held earlier this year.

The GSM operators including Bharti, Vodafone and Idea had opposed Trai's recommendations saying implementation of this report would be a retrograde step.

Sibal would hold more meetings with other telecom operators including Idea Cellular and Vodafone in the next two days.