Spearheading a revolution in the mobile telecom space

The people whose actions shaped the sector's policy

SUKH RAM
Though he was involved in a bribery case which forced him to go to jail, as communication minister in the P V Narasimha Rao Cabinet, he brought in the private sector in telecom mobile services and also allowed FDI of up to 49 per cent for the first time, in the national telecom policy of 1994. The brain behind the liberalised policy was his secretary, N Vittal

SOLI SORABJEE
As attorney general, he negotiated the migration settlement package with telcos in 1999, from licence fee to a revenue share regime, without which mobile services companies would have closed. Ram Vilas Paswan was communications minister

S S SODHI
As Trai chairman, he pushed through the interconnect regime, which ensured incumbent government operators had to allow their consumers to connect to networks of private operators on a non-discriminatory and timely basis. Fought for independence of the regulator and got ousted

PRAMOD MAHAJAN
As communications minister in Atal Bihari Vajpayee's Cabinet, he backed limited mobility, represented by new entrant Reliance, and escalated the battle between GSM operators, who took it to the Supreme Court. His secretary, Shyamal Ghosh, and Mahajan also came under scrutiny for allotting additional spectrum in February 2002 beyond 6.2 MHz, based on a unilateral claim made by an operator without verification of actual subscriber base

ARUN SHOURIE
Resolved the battle between GSM operators and WLL players like Reliance by pushing them to come to a settlement outside court. However, came under criticism as telecom minister for giving Reliance and the Tatas a sweet deal. Vajpayee was Prime Minister

DAYANIDHI MARAN
As telecom minister, he upped FDI in telecom services to 74 per cent, increased competition by allowing two new mobile licences in a circle and expanded the market by making operators slash roaming charges. Many foreign national long-distance players entered during his tenure like AT&T, BT, Telstra, and Verizon. However, came under CBI scrutiny for allegedly forcing C Sivasankaran to sell Aircel to friend, T Anandakrishnan, who controls Maxis in Malaysia. Call rates dropped during his tenure to Rs 1 a minute. Manmohan Singh was prime minister

A RAJA
By allowing half a dozen new players to get mobile licences, Raja, the telecom minister in UPA's first term, kicked off a price war in the market, which led to serious financial problems for the sector. He also successfully organised the 3G and BWA auction and the government got Rs 67,000 crore. It was alleged Raja used a letter written to Prime Minister Manmohan Singh as the basis to dramatically change the 2G licensing policy for new operators, to favour certain companies. Raja went to jail, CAG said the government had made a notional loss of Rs 176,000 crore for giving out spectrum cheap. The Supreme Court struck down the 122 2G licences he had given. Telenor, Etisalat and Sistema came under scrutiny and many in the industry were seriously hit