Ask government to defer call on 2G entry fee: JPC members

NEW DELHI: Cutting across party lines, Congress, BJP and CPI members of the Joint Parliamentary Committee (JPC) on telecom have urged panel chair P C Chacko to ask the government to put on hold any decision on enhanced entry fees for fresh 2G auction.
The JPC members told Chacko the committee should first question the just retired Trai chairperson J S Sarma, who has recommended a 13-fold hike in the base price for 2G airwaves, and his successor former commerce secretary Rahul Khullar.They said it was the committee’s remit to suggest a roadmap for the sector.
Congress MP Manish Tewari told the committee that Sarma and Khullar should be asked about issues that the government has referred back to the regulator in the wake of Trai seeking a manifold increase in entry fees in comparison to the rates set during former telecom minister A Raja’s tenure.
CPI’s Gurudas Dasgupta pointed out that the regulator should be asked about reports that telecom firms were exerting pressure on the government not to accept the Trai recommendations. He said role of private operators should be examined by the committee.
Dasgupta had also recently written to Prime Minister Manmohan Singh on telecom companies strongly campaigning against the proposed reserve price for 2G spectrum auction
Former finance minister Yashwant Sinha agreed with the two members and said Chacko should write to the telecom ministry not to take a view on Trai recommendations, unless the JPC had formed an opinion or at least heard both Sarma and Khullar who could be called by the panel on either May 22 or 29.
The rare convergence between the three major parties and the more active members of the JPC might force the government to take a serious view of the panel’s recommendations. While Chacko could not be contacted, committee members felt that he would heed the overwhelming mood of the senior MPs on the panel.
The discussion on Trai and the fresh auctions ordered by the Supreme Court after cancelling the tainted 2G licences allotted during Raja’s controversial stint as telecom minister came at the end of an examination of former Trai chairperson Justice S S Sodhi, who was the regulator from 1997 to 2000.
Sodhi is reported to have told the committee that the BJP-led National Democratic Alliance (NDA) government decided to allow telecom operators to migrate from a fixed licence fee to a revenue-sharing regime without formally consulting the regulator although there were some informal parleys.
The former Trai head said the NDA regime also decided to separate the regulatory and adjudicatory functions of the regulator as it was finding the arrangement to be inconvenient. He said the NDA found the regulator to be an interloper in its domain.