Bharti, Idea benefited from lapses in policy

Feb 11, 2011 |

Feb. 10: The one-man committee of retired Supreme Court judge Shivraj Patil has found that Bharti Airtel, Idea and Tata Teleservices benefited from the procedural lapses during the 2001-09 period.

The committee found that in case of Bharti Airtel an allotment of 2MHz spectrum beyond 8MHz was made for the Delhi circle in 2003, though no criteria for allotment beyond 8 MHz existed. The allotment was made in anticipation of the report of the Lalwani Committee which was approved by telecom department a month after Bharti was allocated the extra spectrum. “In the absence of a laid down procedure much less an announced one, allotment of spectrum beyond 8MHz was improper,” said the report. In Chennai Aircel stood first in the line for getting the extra spectrum over Bharti.

However, disregarding the criteria of first come first served, both the operators were given 0.6 Mhz, said the report. As per the first come first served criteria Aircel was supposed to get the available 1.4Mhz of spectrum.

The report found that Idea Cellular was given one year time to rectify deficiencies in its application in 2005 for Mumbai, when as per the rules Idea was supposed to be given only one month. The report said that such an action besides making subsequent applicants wait also could result in wastage of spectrum that would have been available for allotment.

The report also found that Idea was allowed to maintain seniority in the priority list for licence in the Mumbai service area. The report found that Tata Teleservices was given several extensions for compliance with the terms of the Letter of Intent (LoIs) in 2001 to get Basic Services Licence (BSLs).

“In the matter of BSLs, the notified guidelines didn’t have a provision for extension of time for compliance with the terms of the LoI. Despite the time frame was extended for Tata Tele Services for grant of BSLs in Maharashtra, Haryana, Kerala, Punjab and Rajasthan service areas, for compliance with the LoI,” the report added.

Post new comment

<form action="/comment/reply/56812" accept-charset="UTF-8" method="post" id="comment-form"> <div><div class="form-item" id="edit-name-wrapper"> <label for="edit-name">Your name: <span class="form-required" title="This field is required.">*</span></label> <input type="text" maxlength="60" name="name" id="edit-name" size="30" value="Reader" class="form-text required" /> </div> <div class="form-item" id="edit-mail-wrapper"> <label for="edit-mail">E-Mail Address: <span class="form-required" title="This field is required.">*</span></label> <input type="text" maxlength="64" name="mail" id="edit-mail" size="30" value="" class="form-text required" /> <div class="description">The content of this field is kept private and will not be shown publicly.</div> </div> <div class="form-item" id="edit-comment-wrapper"> <label for="edit-comment">Comment: <span class="form-required" title="This field is required.">*</span></label> <textarea cols="60" rows="15" name="comment" id="edit-comment" class="form-textarea resizable required"></textarea> </div> <fieldset class=" collapsible collapsed"><legend>Input format</legend><div class="form-item" id="edit-format-1-wrapper"> <label class="option" for="edit-format-1"><input type="radio" id="edit-format-1" name="format" value="1" class="form-radio" /> Filtered HTML</label> <div class="description"><ul class="tips"><li>Web page addresses and e-mail addresses turn into links automatically.</li><li>Allowed HTML tags: <a> <em> <strong> <cite> <code> <ul> <ol> <li> <dl> <dt> <dd></li><li>Lines and paragraphs break automatically.</li></ul></div> </div> <div class="form-item" id="edit-format-2-wrapper"> <label class="option" for="edit-format-2"><input type="radio" id="edit-format-2" name="format" value="2" checked="checked" class="form-radio" /> Full HTML</label> <div class="description"><ul class="tips"><li>Web page addresses and e-mail addresses turn into links automatically.</li><li>Lines and paragraphs break automatically.</li></ul></div> </div> </fieldset> <input type="hidden" name="form_build_id" id="form-2b4104372bc93115edabea75317e5e4b" value="form-2b4104372bc93115edabea75317e5e4b" /> <input type="hidden" name="form_id" id="edit-comment-form" value="comment_form" /> <fieldset class="captcha"><legend>CAPTCHA</legend><div class="description">This question is for testing whether you are a human visitor and to prevent automated spam submissions.</div><input type="hidden" name="captcha_sid" id="edit-captcha-sid" value="88567839" /> <input type="hidden" name="captcha_response" id="edit-captcha-response" value="NLPCaptcha" /> <div class="form-item"> <div id="nlpcaptcha_ajax_api_container"><script type="text/javascript"> var NLPOptions = {key:'c4823cf77a2526b0fba265e2af75c1b5'};</script><script type="text/javascript" src="http://call.nlpcaptcha.in/js/captcha.js" ></script></div> </div> </fieldset> <span class="btn-left"><span class="btn-right"><input type="submit" name="op" id="edit-submit" value="Save" class="form-submit" /></span></span> </div></form>