I had nothing to do with 2G pricing: Pranab

pranab_6.jpg.crop_display.jpg

Finance Minister href="http://www.deccanchronicle.com/category/tags/Pranab-Mukherjee" style="text-decoration:underline;">PranabMukherjee today rejected suggestions that he had anything to do with the pricing of "http://www.deccanchronicle.com/category/tags/2G-scam" style="text-decoration:underline;">2G spectrum and hit out at those spreading 'disinformation' on the issue.

In 2007 when he was External Affairs Minister, Mukherjee had been appointed Chairman of a Group of Ministers (GoM) on vacation of 3G spectrum which, he said, had nothing to do with 2G and its pricing.

The GoM was for vacation of spectrum by the defence and para-military forces and the communication ministry for mobile telephony and other issues. Pricing was not part of the mandate of the GoM, he said.

"In a nutshell, I had nothing to do with 2G," he said in an interview during which he deprecated attempts to spread "a lot of disinformation" on 2G targeting ministers.

The job of the GoM headed by him was on vacation of the spectrum and "how can you bring pricing and other things (of 2G spectrum) here", Mukherjee said.

"So far as pricing and other things concerned, it was not not part of the mandate of the GoM," he emphasised.

The terms of reference of the GoM was changed at the insistence of the nodal ministry and how could anyone conclude

there was manipulation of pricing, he said with reference to reports that he had been aware of such manipulation.

In November, 2007 Prime Minister Manmohan Singh had asked Mukherjee to apprise himself of the issues raised by the Cellular Operators Association of India (COAI) and GSM operators challenging the criteria for allocation of additional GSM spectrum.

The issues had been raised with the then Telecom Minister A Raja and the then Solicitor General G E Vahanvati in the context of proceedings pending in the Telecom Disputes Settlement Appellate Tribunal (TDSAT).

Mukherjee said in this context he held a meeting with Raja and Vahanvati in the first week of December, 2007. Vahanvati had explained that the existing operators were insisting on allocation of additional GSM spectrum on the basis of March 2006 guidelines which they contended were adequate.

There was no no substance in this contention in view of the Telecom Regulatory Authority of India (TRAI) recommended revised criteria which were stricter.

Vahanvati had explained to him that as per the directions of the TDSAT, an affidavit had been filed in November 2007 indicating the way forward.

Post new comment

<form action="/comment/reply/87596" 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: &lt;a&gt; &lt;em&gt; &lt;strong&gt; &lt;cite&gt; &lt;code&gt; &lt;ul&gt; &lt;ol&gt; &lt;li&gt; &lt;dl&gt; &lt;dt&gt; &lt;dd&gt;</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-d9da25ebb9c3ae0b8f64c001833956d0" value="form-d9da25ebb9c3ae0b8f64c001833956d0" /> <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="81511230" /> <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>

No Articles Found

No Articles Found

No Articles Found

I want to begin with a little story that was told to me by a leading executive at Aptech. He was exercising in a gym with a lot of younger people.

Shekhar Kapur’s Bandit Queen didn’t make the cut. Neither did Shaji Karun’s Piravi, which bagged 31 international awards.