Lightning calls

Dayanidhi Maran became the country's (youngest) communications minister because his granduncle (M Karunanidhi), who leads an important constituent of the United Progressive Alliance (UPA) wanted him there; so it is only appropriate that he step down when he has lost favour with the same granduncle. How he lost favour is a fascinating story in its own right, since it involves a clash between business and media interests and a political dynasty. A Maran-owned newspaper published an "opinion poll" on who should succeed the ageing Mr Karunanidhi in Tamil Nadu as head of the Dravida Munnetra Kazhagam and as chief minister. Mr Karunanidhi thought this was designed to cause a split between his two sons, who are active in politics. Since he was perhaps unable to move against Mr Maran's elder brother, Kalanidhi Maran (who runs the Sun media group), the axe fell on the younger Mr Maran""a fact that does not speak well of the basis on which ministers are appointed or step down. The even larger embarrassment is that Mr Maran was chosen to lead the communications ministry even though his brother runs a broadcasting empire whose fortunes are affected by decisions that the ministry has to take. The manner in which the ministry dealt with Tata-Sky brought the conflict of interest out in the open.

What of Mr Maran as a minister? Certainly, he had little patience for the regulatory structure which had been put in place; so, he announced a new tariff plan (One India) though it was the telecom regulator's (the Telecom Regulatory Authority of India, or Trai) job to do this, and a stony relationship with the Trai chief ensured that he did not act on its recommendations for more than a year, on occasion. Indeed, when Trai was moving at long last to reduce the access deficit charge, which helped the public sector Bharat Sanchar Nigam, Mr Maran initiated paperwork to issue a directive that would prevent Trai from doing this. As the minister in charge, he refused to accept Trai's recommendations that asked the public sector telecom service providers to allow access to their customers; in another, he arbitrarily changed the definition of a service to hit private Internet providers in order to protect the same public sector firms. And he refused to take action when BSNL was found to be acting as a monopolist and delaying connectivity to competitors.

Against this negative record, Mr Maran's positive contributions were commendable. It was during his tenure that the limit on foreign direct investment in telecom was raised to 74 per cent; and he fought hard to defeat the move by the security establishment to impose unrealistic controls on foreign investors. And while it is true Maran had little patience for Trai, the regulator did make some recommendations that were beyond the pale. In one case, it protected the incumbent long-distance service providers by putting up high entrance fees and onerous rollout obligations for new players""Mr Maran slashed the entrance fees and removed the obligations, which has resulted in more players coming into the sector. When Trai recommended that 3G spectrum be allotted to the existing mobile phone firms by right, Mr Maran realised that this meant no new player would ever be allowed to enter the sector, and sat on the recommendations till a new Trai chairman came up with more sensible recommendations.

On balance, it would be fair to say Mr Maran did a good job for the country. As for Tamil Nadu, his home state, the results are obvious if you see the number of software and hardware firms that have set up shop there in the last three years, or are in the process of doing so.