Telecom panel meeting on Nov 11 to review auctions

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New Delhi: The inter-ministerial committee on 3-G spectrum and broadband wireless auction is slated to meet on November 11 to take stock of the situation for auctions slated to begin from January 14. Member finance in the telecom commission, the apex policy-making body of the department of telecommunications (DoT) constituted to conduct the auction, would head the committee.

“As per the timeline, the auction process would start from the second week of November with the pre-bid conference slated to be held on November 16. It is therefore proposed to hold a meeting of the inter-ministerial committee sometime after November 9,” said a note prepared by the DoT.

The committee is likely to look into the issue of spectrum vacation by the defence, which threatened to once again derail the 3-G spectrum auction. According to an MoU between the defence ministry and the DoT, the former is supposed to vacate 20 Mhz of 3-G spectrum that will be auctioned by the DoT. The inter-ministerial meeting follows a briefing from the auctioneer Rothschild on November 10.

Meanwhile, speaking at the economic editors’ conference on Tuesday finance minister Pranab Mukherjee said, “I have received some information and am aware of certain areas of differences. The defence ministry and the telecom ministry had signed an MoU towards the end of the last regime. I do hope that decisions will be taken in accordance to the letter and spirit of that MoU. The timeline and schedule for the auctions is to be decided by the ministry. We have appointed an empowered group of ministers and the ministry will have to implement the decisions taken by it.”