Committee faults all spectrum decisions taken since 2003

All decisions on radio spectrum allocation taken by the department of telecom (DoT) under successive governments since 2003, including the UPA, were procedurally wrong, the one-man committee headed by retired Justice Shivraj Patel said in its report.

According to the report, the internal procedures adopted by DoT and the government since 2001 have not been in tune with extant policies and directions of the government.

It has held that the decisions taken by the DoT in respect of grant of universal access licence (UASL) which was bundled with spectrum, right from 2003 onwards, were neither consistent with the decisions of the union cabinet taken on 31 October 2003 nor the recommendations of TRAI.

However, the report said the DoT did not follow the advice of the law ministry or the views of the finance ministry over pricing of spectrum in the 2007-08 sale.

The committee has recommended reforms in allocation of spectrum and penalty on hoarding of the scarce resource.

The report has suggested remedial measures to avoid in future, deficiencies in formulation of procedures and lapses in implementation of laid-down procedures. It has been advised that a reasonable, fair, transparent and certain procedure for selection based on merits is devised instead of FCFS.