The Parliamentary Accounts Committee, which is looking into the controversial allotment of telecom licences in 2007-08, has raised serious questions which will once again put the Communications & IT minister A Raja in a tight spot.
The PAC has questioned the department of telecommunications (DoT) as to why wasn’t 2-G spectrum auctioned. ? Why was the auction route which has been followed in the allocation of 3-G spectrum resulting in huge revenue collection of Rs 67,718.95 crore not followed during the allocation of 2-G spectrum?, the PAC has asked in writing.
The question has been haunting Raja ever since his controversial allotment of the licences in an arbitrary first come first serve basis to a select few companies in 2007. The move was estimated to have cost loss of close to billions of dollars of public money.
Raja’s defence all along has been that he upheld the Telecom regulatory Authority of India (Trai) recommendation of not auctioning the spectrum and the methodology which was being followed so far. However the Trai had recommended not to auction the spectrum but to auction the telecom licence which is bundled with 4.4 Mhz spectrum. Trai also complained that the DoT was cherry picking its suggestions.
The PAC’s questions come after the panel had already summoned a number of the current and retired DoT officials along with the current Trai chairman, JS Sarma and the former Trai chairman, Nripendra Misra. The PAC is one of the most powerful committees of Parliament which scrutinises the financial accounts of the government and PSUs based on the reports of the CAG.