Controversial issue of spectrum pricing to be taken on EGOM's board on July 12

11 Jul 2012 Evaluate

The much deferred Empowered Group of Ministers (EGoM) meet on Telecom will be held on July 12 to decide on the controversial issue of spectrum pricing. Crucial aspects like pricing of spectrum, one-time fee, roll-out obligations, terms of payment and the timeline for selecting the auctioneer, will be taken on board for discussion, by the EGoM under the chairmanship of Union Home Minister P Chidambaram who was asked to head the EGoM on spectrum auction after Agriculture Minister Sharad Pawar declined the job, apprehending controversy.

With the industry crying foul, the Telecom Regulatory Authority of India (TRAI), the sector regulator, proposed a near 10-fold rise in the auction’s starting price compared to what carriers paid in 2008. The regulator recommended 2G spectrum reserve price at Rs 3,622 crore per unit of spectrum in the 1800 MHz band, which translates to an amount of over Rs 18,000 crore for pan-India license, i.e. 13x of current base price of 2G and equivalent to 3G spectrum cost, where radio airwaves were vacated following the Supreme Court’s verdict on February 2 cancelling all the 122 spectrum licenses allotted in 2008 during the tenure of the former telecom minister A Raja. 

Importantly, the issue on the one-time fee to be paid by the incumbent players, which does not augurs well with the Finance Ministry and the Planning Commission, too would be discussed upon.  Towards this development, Department of Telecom (DoT) in a move aimed at making the playing field level, wants to charge all operators a fee for the entire spectrum they hold.

Meanwhile, the EGoM is also expected to approve a new deadline for the auction process as well. Making the deadline date of August 31 set by Supreme Court, unattainable, the Department of Telecom (DoT) for the second time extended the timeline for receiving bids from companies for the auctioneer’s job to July 20 instead of the earlier date of July 5, which in turn implies that the all important information memorandum detailing the auction guidelines will now only be issued on August 22 instead of August 6, 2012.

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