Some little known facts of the CAG report

• The decision to continue to charge entry fee at the 2001 level even from the new licensees under the UAS regime in 2003 was not deliberated either in Trai or Telecom Commission or GoM or Cabinet 
   
• Despite all agencies having full knowledge of scarcity and underpricing of spectrum, the entry fee for issue of licences continued to be pegged at 2001 rates even in 2007 without independently discovering the price of spectrum through a market mechanism 
   
• The difference of opinion between communications and law ministers regarding referring the matter of awarding fresh licences to an EGoM remained unresolved and DoT went ahead with processing a large number of applications without deciding the issue of legal tenability raised by them. 408 new requests were received in eight days. 
  

 

Sanctity of DoT’s own first-come-first-served policy was violated in various ways – abrupt fixation of arbitrary cut-off dates in September 2007 for receipt of applications, clubbing all applicants and issuing LoIs simultaneously, proposal to maintain seniority of applicants based on the date of applications if more than one applicant complied with LoI condition on the same day was rejected, change in the method of applying first-come-first-served criteria from the date of receipt of application to the date of compliance of LoI and leaking information about date of issue of LoIs to select applicants, thereby enabling them to keep demand drafts ready for payment of entry fee. 

 

DoT has failed to recover liquidated damages and penalty of Rs 697 crore from six new operators for delay in rolling out services till December 31, 2009 
 

Additional spectrum given to GSM players beyond prescribed limit would lead to an additional flow of revenue of Rs 36,993 crore 

 

Dual technology introduced by DoT in October 2007 in a hasty and arbitrary manner and in-principle manner approval was given to three operators on a day prior to the announcement of the policy, which gave the perception of discrimination against other players in the field. 
 

Trai’s role appears to have been reduced to that of a hapless spectator as its recommendations were either ignored or applied selectively 

 

The entire process of allocation of 2G spectrum raises serious concern about the system of governance in DoT, which needs to be thoroughly reviewed and revamped. 
 

The fact that there has been loss to the national exchequer in the allocation of 2G spectrum cannot be denied. However, the amount of loss could be debated. To ensure such lapses do not occur in any ministry or department of the government, there is an imperative need to fix responsibility and enforce accountability for the lapses highlighted in the audit report