Officials in the department of telecommunications quip in relaxed conversations with reporters that they will soon be experts in handling archival matters of the government rather than telecom! In effect, that?s what most of them have been doing over the last five months since Kapil Sibal took charge as the telecom minister. First, they had to dust off old files to service the one man Shivraj Patil committee, which Sibal had constituted to look into all spectrum allocations since 2001. Now, they have to do a similar exercise on papers relating to the disinvestment of the telecom PSU VSNL in 2002. At least Patil had a luxurious six weeks to complete his work; Additional secretary SR Rao has barely 15 days!
Officials were a bit perplexed to see the minister?s order dated March 15 asking for an inquiry into the VSNL disinvestment as it was not high on their agenda. They got the answer by the week-end, when they saw the cover of Outlook, which ran a story on the alleged favours shown by former disinvestment and telecom minister Arun Shourie to the Tatas, who acquired the company. Did the minister know that such a story was going to come? Or was it a mere coincidence? They don?t have the answers and, even if they do, they pretend not to know anything.
The officials, who had been working extra hours daily and also coming to office on weekends when the Patil committee was at work, are now once again set to repeat their performance. With the March 31 deadline for Rao barely a week away, officials of Tata Communications (earlier VSNL) will also have to start dusting their old papers, letters and files.
It is unlikely that Rao will call Shourie to tell his side of the story but the former journalist-turned-minister has already brushed up his memory and pulled out the relevant papers to put up his defence. On Tuesday, all major journalists were adequately given a refresher course on the VSNL disinvestment issue?how it was done and how impeccable the homework was in this regard.
Even as Shourie trains his guns on the UPA government for delaying the demerger of the surplus land of VSNL, DoT officials have suddenly gone silent. It is difficult to get a word from anyone there as, understandably, strict gag orders have been issued. One could not get a word even from the additional secretary conducting the inquiry.