Yashwant Sinha alleges another telecom scam, writes to PM

The letter was released to the media Tuesday

Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) leader Yashwant Sinha has written a letter to Prime Minister Manmohan Singh warning him of another scam in the telecom sector. Sinha said the recommended price of spectrum set by the Telecom Regulatory Authority of India (Trai) and the Telecom Commission (TC) would lead to significant loss of revenue for the government.

In his letter, Sinha, who is also the chairperson of the Parliamentary Standing Committee on Finance, said he was ‘appalled and dismayed’ by the decision of the Trai to recommend a 37% reduction in spectrum price in 1800 MHz band, and 62% in the 900 MHz band for a block of 1MHz spectrum.

Sinha said the government was likely to face a potential loss of Rs 35,000 crore, if spectrum was auctioned at the price recommended by Trai. He further added that the recommendations of Trai were only for the benefit of the incumbent telecom operators. Sinha also questioned the TC's recommendation, which has proposed a 25% increase in the spectrum price, and said if the government auctioned spectrum on the price set by TC then the exchequer will suffer a loss of Rs 27,000 crore.

Sinha said the present recommendations of Trai were contradictory to what its chairman, Rahul Khullar, had argued while giving a presentation to the Joint Parliamentary Committee in June 2012.

“I fail to understand why the same body (Trai) now has junked its own recommendations within one year and has recommended within one year and has recommended such a steep reduction in the reserve price. This is not expected from a sector specialist,” Sinha said. He also objected to the reduction in the Spectrum Usage Charge by Trai.