NEWS
ANALYSIS
SPECIALS
INTERVIEW
CAMPAIGN TRAIL
CONSTITUENCY
ISSUES
GALLERY
MANIFESTOS
INDIA SPEAKS!
COUNTDOWN
CHAT
PREVIOUS RESULTS
SCHEDULE
DISCUSSION GROUP

Congress accuses PMO of underhand deals in telecom changeover

Amberish K Diwanji in New Delhi

The Congress today again brought up the alleged telecom scandal, saying new revelations raise questions about who benefited from the policy changes initiated by the Bharatiya Janata Party-led alliance government, and demanded answers from no less than the prime minister.

Congress spokesman Kapil Sibal pointed out that the telecom policy dealt with three services - basic, metro cellular and circle cellular. "Only the last was suffering losses; the first two were doing quite well," he said.

He charged the BJP in general and the prime minister's office in particular with underhand dealings to convert the licence-fee-based telecom policy into a revenue-sharing system.

According to Sibal, by converting the basic services to the revenue-sharing system, the government stood to lose more than Rs 200 billion. The loss on the metro cellular services is even higher, in the range of Rs 400 billion, while the losses from the circle cellular services will be around Rs 100 billion.

"The ones who stand to gain from the changeover are the business houses providing these services. They are the biggest beneficiaries. Who else stands to gain?" he said.

The companies offering metro cellular services are Bharti Cellular and Sterling Cellular in Delhi, BPL and Hutchison Max in Bombay, Modi Telstra and Usha Martin in Calcutta, and RPG Telecom and Skycell in Madras.

Some of the basic-service providers are Tata Telecom in Andhra Pradesh, Reliance in Gujarat, Hughes Ispat in Maharashtra, Bharti Telecom in Madhya Pradesh, Essar in Punjab, and Syam Telecom in Rajasthan.

The Congress rejected the government's argument that revenue loss from the changeover is notional and that it actually stands to gain by sharing in the profits.

It pointed out that the percentage of government revenue is not fixed, that the 15 per cent decided upon is only a notional arrangement, with the Telecom Regulatory Authority of India to decide the final percentage and different metros to have different rates.

"With such a deal, the government cannot calculate its gains, and the maximum gains will accrue to the basic and metro cellular operators," said Sibal.

Moreover, the very fact that the telecom operators have accepted the new policy without knowing the government's percentage only indicates a secret deal, whereby the operators are putting their entire business at stake on some hidden information, he said.

Sibal pointed out that the haste with which the operators and the government accepted the policy of revenue sharing though the percentage in which the revenue is to be shared is unknown is surprising.

But the BJP again rejected the Congress charges. "The Congress everyday, at its press conference, raises various bogeys based on lies. The Congress earlier said there was a scam of Rs 500 billion, then Congress president Sonia Gandhi said it was a scandal of just Rs 20 million. Do they even know what they are talking about," queried BJP spokesman Narendra Modi.

Modi insisted that the policy was changed with the singular purpose of benefiting the customers and helping telecom services in India grow, but did not explain exactly how.

"Why is the Congress accusing us of a scandal when its very members, senior leader Pranab Mukherjee and 36 members of Parliament, along with Left leader [Somnath Chatterjee] had pleaded with the government to change the telecom policy from one based on licence fees to revenue sharing," he asked.

He also denied the earlier allegations made by the Congress. "Yesterday, the Congress accused the government of scams in importing sugar and wheat. Today, we have the details from our side," said Modi.

According to the BJP spokesman, the import of wheat was ordered by former prime minister I K Gujral just before demitting office. "Cancelling the contract would have cost India, so we kept it," said Modi.

He further said that of the 3.8 million tonnes of wheat imported, 3.6 million tonnes had already been distributed and the remaining would be distributed soon.

He said the government had not imported any sugar after December and again pointed out that the Congress government of P V Narasimha Rao had placed the commodity on the open list, thereby allowing imports that hurt the Indian farmer.

Modi, however, refused to say what prevented the BJP from stopping the imports even if it involved some financial loss.

The BJP also flayed the Congress president for calling Prime Minister A B Vajpayee a "traitor" in her speech at Ujjain in Madhya Pradesh.

"In all our years in the opposition, even when we strongly disagreed with the government's policy, we never called the prime minister a traitor. It is alien to Indian culture. This only shows that Sonia Gandhi knows nothing about Indian culture," said Modi.

"When India lost territory to China in 1962 during Jawaharlal Nehru's rule, when Indira Gandhi gave back occupied territory to Pakistan in 1972, when Rajiv Gandhi was allegedly involved in the Bofors scam in 1988, never did we call these three leaders traitors. We strongly condemn the statement of Sonia Gandhi," declared Modi.

Modi alleged that under Sonia Gandhi, the Congress had become a graveyard of the truth.

Tell us what you think of this report