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A committee has been formed to scrutinise details of these applicants before a decision is taken to award the Unified Access Service Licences, the minister said, adding that "after knowing all facts, a transparent approach will be followed to deal with these applications."
Various corporate houses and multinational companies including AT&T, Russian firm Sistema, Sterlite, Hindujas, DLF, Parsavnath, Videocon and others have entered the fray to get telecom licences.
Asked what could be the reason for such a rush of applications especially from non-telecom companies, Raja said, "It shows that this business really (has a growth) potential... But my job is to see that the benefits of telecom growth reach people at large."
On the issue of whether previous experience in telecom sector would be given priority for allocating new licences, he said all three categories -- existing operators, licence holders without spectrum and fresh applicants -- would be dealt with separately.
The Department of Telecom (DoT) is currently looking into guidelines relating to spectrum allocation and other financial criteria like networth of a company for the purpose of awarding new licences.