Telecom Regulatory Authority of India (Trai) chairman Rahul Khullar says he has demonstrated how to get around the negative perception created by successive audit reports on different sectors of the economy.
?We have turned around everything on its head,? he said in his first interview to any media after releasing his recommendations on lowering the reserve price of spectrum for auctions by up to 60%.
Describing his approach of arriving at the value of spectrum as ?bottom up? ? first determining the value in each circle ? he said that the past two auctions failed because of first determining a pan-India price on the basis of 3G auction prices and then dividing it into circles.
?I have no quarrel with either the Comptroller and Auditor General or my predecessor (the previous Trai chairman), but my way is a fresh way to look at things and it seems to work,? he said.
Khullar said his recommendations which, besides suggesting the reserve price, talk about certain policy measures, have dealt with all sorts of criticism and shown the Indian telecom sector the way to again become an exciting investment avenue. The pricing of airwaves was the basis of the CAG?s report in 2010, which resulted in a political storm for the past two years and led to a flight of investment from the sector. That audit report had pinned the presumptive loss for the government from the allocation of airwaves by former telecom minister A Raja at R1.76 lakh crore.
Trai has now adopted a pricing model that is built on the latest auction literature available globally. ?There is no secret this time about the methods we have deployed. It?s all there in the report for anyone to examine and comment upon,? Khullar said. For each circle, the report uses five alternate models to arrive at the price which seems most reasonable. He said the details put out were necessary to ?re-build the trust in the public about regulatory institutions like Trai?.
Responding to criticism by the CDMA players that no recommendations have been made for the 800 MHz band, he said it suffered from a different class of issues. ?Also, in the two latest auctions, there was once no bid and the next time just one bidder,? he added.
He said the report will start bringing all telcos onto the the same playing field by rationalising the spectrum usage charge and rollout obligations.