Panel seeks factual report on telecom firms' spectrum surrender approval

A parliamentary committee has sought a factual note from the Ministry of Communications on reports that its department of telecommunications allowed the surrender of spectrum acquired in auctions by telecom companies before 2022, sources said.

In its communication to the ministry, the committee headed by BJP MP Nishikant Dubey has mentioned a critical observation in the CAG report of 2015 related to the Communications and IT sector over the "lack of due diligence in auction of spectrum for Broadband Wireless Access (BWA) services", they said.

The CAG had observed that the Notice Inviting Applications for the BWA auction suffered from deficiencies in scope of usage of spectrum for different class of licencees.

The committee said the audit watchdog had noted that the UAS/CMTS (Unified Access Services/Cable Modem Termination System) and ISP (Internet Service Provider) operators were allowed to bid for the same BWA spectrum while the usage of spectrum was governed by their respective licences.

The CAG said, "This led to post-auction demand by M/s Infotel for network codes which would have enabled them to provide voice services beyond the scope of their ISP licence. DoT facilitated the request by permitting them to migrate to Unified Licence after the auction."  It added, "This migration, allowed at prices discovered in 2001, resulted in undue advantage of 3,367.29 crore to M/s Reliance Jio Infocomm (formerly M/s Infotel). It was also seen that even after four years of auction the roll out of BWA services has been negligible."  Citing the CAG observations and some recent reports claiming that the department of telecommunications allowed the surrender of spectrum acquired in auctions by telecom companies before 2022, the panel has sought a factual note from the ministry.