With senior officers of the department of telecommunications (DoT) shying away from taking direct charge of 4G spectrum auctions (700 MHz & 2.5Ghz band), expected to be conducted later in the year, DoT has set up a special committee under the DDG finance to conduct the 4G spectrum auction.
This happened after the senior officers in DoT as well as the Wireless Planning and Coordination wing (WPC) have excused themselves of taking direct responsibility of the proposed 4G auctions citing various reasons, sources said. Incidentally, the 3G spectrum auction in 2010 were conducted under the direct supervision of the then joint secretary and yielded 1.06 lakh crore of additional revenue to the Central government.
Even this time around, DoT initially decided to entrust its Joint Secretary with the task of conducting the 4G spectrum auctions. However, sources told FE that the bureaucrat asked to be excused from heading the auction process. The additional secretary who was then approached also declined the offer citing lack of enough resources at his disposal.
As reported by FE in its edition dated February 2, the DoT has drawn up a plan to finalise crucial issues pertaining to the auction by April 15, after which the matter will be sent for a Cabinet approval.
The WPC was tasked with communicating with the ministry of information and broadcasting (I&B) and taking over spectrum in the contentious 698-806 MHz band or the 700 MHz band, and also look into the space band or the 2.5 Ghz band, however with all the senior officers at the department shying away from the responsibility of heading the auction process, the department then decided to set up this special committee which will now draw the blueprint of the auction, official sources told FE.
As part of the plan, the DoT will soon write to the Telecom Regulatory Authority of India seeking the latter’s recommendation on the reserve price, quantity of spectrum to be auctioned and eligibility criteria. Separately, the DoT will select the auctioneer.
Fourth-generation spectrum is considered very efficient as it requires fewer base transceiver stations to be put up compared with spectrum in bands of 800 Mhz, 900 Mhz and most of the 1,800 MHz band. And the telecom minister Kapil Sibal confirmed the government’s commitment to conduct the auctions in the fiscal at a recent press conference.
