New Delhi: In his dogged determination to grant 2G spectrum licences to his preferred firms for a song, former telecom minister A Raja had no qualms in castigating bureaucrats who wanted to play by the rules. While former telecom secretary D S Mathur's counsel was ignored by the minister and the then Trai chairman's views were not sought, he even tried to bring disgrace to another senior official by questioning her integrity in file notings.
Raja's aggressive behaviour virtually forced former member-finance in the Telecom Commission Manju Madhavan to take voluntary retirement after proceeding on leave in 2007.
In a written note, Raja accused Madhavan of working "on behalf of vested interests". The language used by Raja and the posture adopted by him clearly bring out what the Comptroller and Auditor General's report and Mathur have said: the minister was adamant on granting licences on the terms and conditions which best suited him.
When FE contacted her, Madhavan declined to speak on the matter, "Thanks for calling me but I don't want to speak on the matter," she said.
What was Madhavan's fault that she drew Raja's ire in a manner which is quite unbecoming for a minister when it comes to dealing with a senior official?
Madhavan had put up a note arguing that the rates at which the licences were being planned to be given should be revised as they did not reflect the current market dynamics. She had proposed three alternatives to the minister which would have fetched the government higher revenues.
The then DoT secretary endorsed her views on the file.
"Since the rates have not been revised and the finance secretary has raised the issue, I am of the view that this issue should be examined in depth before any further steps are taken in this matter," Madhavan had said in her note on receipt of a letter from the then finance secretary, D Subbarao wherein concern was expressed that the licence fee was based on 2001 bids.
Raja had wanted to give licences for a pan-India operation for Rs 1,651 crore, a rate discovered through auction of licences in 2001 and other officials, including Madhavan were opposing it.
Reacting strongly to the proposal Raja noted in the file, "The matter of entry fee has been deliberated in the department several times in the light of various guidelines issued by the department and recommendations of Trai. And, accordingly a decision has been taken that entry fee need not be revised".
Further admonishing the member-finance, he went on to state, "On the above lines, (the) secretary telecom has also replied to the finance secretary's letter. Member finance should have checked the facts with the secretary telecom before putting up the note on the file."
Raja's anger did not stop at that and he went on to accuse Madhavan, "these type of continuous confusions observed on the file, whoever be the officer concerned, does not show any legitimacy and integrity but only their vested interests".
Making an even more caustic remark, Raja noted, "Concerned officers have neither up-to-date knowledge of unified access service licence (UASL) guidelines nor have bothered to go through the file".
In her note Madhavan had meticulously drawn up alternatives whereby the government would have conducted auctions for licences by keeping the 2001 price as the base price and allocating spectrum to the winners according to availability.
She had also stated that prior to any such auction a study should be taken to find out how much spectrum was available and what is the need of the existing operators for further growth and then only a holistic criteria be fixed for granting any fresh licence/spectrum.
Soon after this, Madhavan went on leave and later sought voluntary retirement from service. Mathur also retired and with a new secretary Siddhartha Behura who signed the files Raja was able to grant the licences as per his wish on January 10, 2008. Behura had told FE on Sunday that he had no option but to implement the minister's decision.
Source: Financial Express
http://news.in.msn.com/national/article.aspx?cp-documentid=4579100&page=0
No comments:
Post a Comment