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Cong charges govt with Rs 130-bn telecom scam

Rifat Jawaid in Calcutta

Close on the heels of the defence scandal, the Congress on Thursday launched yet another attack on the National Democratic Alliance government accusing it being involved in a Rs 130 billion (Rs 13,000 crore) in some tainted telecom deals.

Releasing a four-page document at a media conference, Priya Ranjan Dasmunsi -- the Congress chief whip in Parliament -- accused Union Telecommunications Minister Ram Vilas Paswan and the Prime Minister's Office of 'manipulating' the new telecom policy.

Dasmunsi charged the government with using the Telecom Regulatory Authority of India to 'rob the national exchequer'.

According to him, the NDA government had granted deals to companies that were blacklisted during the 1994 telecom scam.

"The recent controversy can popularly be termed as GSM versus CDMA wireless in local loop (WLL). While territories have been sold out to respective licencees through Cellular Service Providers with the allotment of a frequency of 6.2 MHz realising Rs 742 billion, the same government provided the basic service support through CDMA WLL technology at a higher frequency of 12.5 MHz".

"Ironically, the second deal fetched the government a paltry Rs 11 billion, which is a whopping Rs 130 billion less than what the government could have got in the same deal," Dasmunsi claimed.

He said that there were discrepancies in the method of issuance of tenders for these telecom deals.

"The government received 147 applications from various bidders even before the telecom policy was announced on Januray 25, this year. He expressed his surprise on the manner in which the Union telecommunications ministry verified all applications within two days even though January 26 was a national holiday.

Dasmunsi added, " The government chose to exempt Rs 130 billion in the latter's case while issuing letter of intents on March 6 without even informing Parliament when it was in session. Simple calculations of realising the license fees should have been Rs 140 billion at 12.5 MHz frequency, while the deal could have got the government Rs 7.42 billion at 6.2 MHz frequency. What's more, the standing committee of communications made serious observations against the entire method before releasing letter of intents in their 17th report."

When contacted, Minister of State for Telecommunications Tapan Sikdar told reporters at the Bhartiya Janata Party state headquarters that he was waiting for Dasmunsi to furnish all the details before his ministry in this regard.

Sikdar, however, admitted that 'irregularities do take place in several deals'. When told that his ministry had granted a telecom deal to Himachal Futuristic Communications Ltd, a company blacklisted during 1994 telecom scam, Sikdar said that he would only reply after getting the full text of allegations.

"I admit that Himachal Futuristic was blacklisted in 1994. But, why it got the deals this time again would only be clarified by us when we get to know about all anomalies that Dasmunsi is pointing at," Sikdar said.

Cong trying to politicize issue before WB polls: Sikdar

Sikdar, however, alleged that Dasmunsi was attempting to politicise the entire issue ahead of assembly elections in West Bengal. He asked the Congress chief whip to raise this issue in Parliament.

"Our pledge was to provide telephone connections to every village by 2002. But soon we realised that this target could just not be achieved in the prescribed timeframe as we had envisaged merely because there weren't many phone exchanges available. That's the reason we planned to bring wireless services," he said.

"While striking a deal for wireless service, we found that the GSM was a little expensive with regards to that of wireless prompting us to place orders to the latter. But while doing so, we saw GSM prices were slashed considerably. So we were in fix. As for Himachal, there is no denying the fact that the company had been blacklisted in 1994. I promise you all that the allegations levelled by Mr Dasmunsi would be looked in seriously," Sikdar remarked.

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