BSNL secured 3G spectrum for all the circles other than Delhi and Mumbai where it has no existence, by paying Rs 10186 crores. It is offering 3G services in all the circles other than Delhi and Mumbai.
MTNL secured 3G spectrum for Delhi and Mumbai by paying Rs 6564 crores. It is offering 3G services in Delhi and Mumbai.
Airtel secured 3G spectrum in 13 Circles including Delhi and Mumbai by paying Rs 12295 crores, but offering 3G services to its customers in 20 circles.
Vodafone secured 3G spectrum for 9 circles including Delhi and Mumbai by paying Rs Rs 11618 crores. But it is offering 3G services to its customers in 20 circles.
Idea secured 3G spectrum for 11 circles excluding Delhi and Mumbai by paying Rs 5769 crores. But it is offering 3G services to its customers in 19 circles.
Thus while the PSUs BSNL and MTNL are offering 3G services to their customers in the circles where they secured 3G spectrum by paying the due amount, the private operators Airtel, Viodafone and Idea are offering 3G services to their customers in several circles where they have not secured 3G spectrum.
This they are doing by sharing the 3G spectrum of the operator that is having it in the concerned circle. Suppose Airtel is not having 3G spectrum in a certain circle and Vodafone is having the 3G spectrum in that circle, it is sharing the spectrum of Vodafone and offering 3G services to its customers. This is called “Intra Circle Roaming” i.e a subscriber of a circle roaming within the same circle for 3G services. Airtel, Vodafone and Idea have signed such mutual intra circle roaming agreements among themselves and offering 3G services to their subscribers in the circles where they are not having 3G spectrum by sharing the 3G spectrum of the partner of the agreement having the 3G spectrum in those circles.
Thus Airtel avoided payment of 3G spectrum fees for 7 circles, Vodafone for 11 circles and Idea for 8 circles even though they are offering 3G services to their customers in those circles. The 3G spectrum fee thus they avoided to pay to the Government is estimated to be more than Rs 20,000 crores. Thus this is a big scam and can be called as “3G spectrum scam”.
The TRAI, DoT and Law Ministry came to the conclusion that these intra circle roaming agreements of these 3 private operators are illegal and hence should be cancelled. As per the reports in the news papers, the DoT decided to issue notices to these 3 Operators for terminating their intra circle roaming agreements. But these 3 Operators came together and wrote a threatening letter to the Prime Minister demanding to give back the 3G spectrum fee paid by them with interest and also to compensate them for the expenditure incurred by them for the 3G network.
Instead of taking action against them, the Government started listening to them. On 30/11/2011 the Communications Minister Kapil Sibal called a meeting of all stake holders in telecom services sector at his residence. But here the word “stake holders” has to be understood as Private Operators only and not BSNL and MTNL since the PSUs are given step motherly treatment by the Government. The heads of these 3 Companies Sunil Mittal(Airtel), Vittorio Colao(Vodafone) and Aditya Birla(Idea) along with Anil Ambani(Reliance) and Ishat Hussain representing Tata Teleservices attended this meeting.
This meeting was arranged to discuss the National Telecom Policy 2011, pricing of the excess 2G spectrum allotted to the private operators, the intra circle roaming agreements for 3G spectrum between Airtel, Vodafone and Idea as detailed above, “high penalties”(Rs 50 crores for violation) being collected from the telecom operators for violation of rules and licence conditions, financing to telecom operators by banks, issues related to mergers and acquisitions between telecom operators etc. After that they met the Prime Minister . They also met the Finance Minister Pranab Mukherjee, Commerce Minister Anand Sharma, Law Minister Salman Khurshid, DoT Secretary R.Chandrasekhar and TRAI Chairman J.S.Sarma.
They have demanded lowering of license fee to 6%(at present it varies from 6 to 10%) on revenue from services, exclusion of non-telecom revenue while calculating the licence fee on revenue, treating the intra circle 3G spectrum agreements as legal (although it is against rules), not to limit the amount of spectrum in the allotment, government’s intervention to see that banks give loans to telecom operators (banks have stoppd giving loans to telecom operators after the 2G scam) etc. They demanded the Government to create confidence to the investors to invest in telecom sector. They told that during last year, in the telecom sector, the foreign investment declined by 35% and the investment by leading operators declined by 50%. This means, to create confidence to the investors, the Government should act more in favour of the private telecom operators at the cost of exchequer and at the cost of the PSUs in telecom sector and Government should close its eyes against their irregularities.
It seems the Government is coming under their pressure. On 7th December, the India Telecom Summit meeting will be held, where the Prime Minister will address. In that address, he may reveal some of the views taken by the Government on the demands of the private telecom operators.
While the private operators are thus intensifying their lobbying and bringing pressure on the Government to settle their demands, the managements of BSNL and MTNL are not doing the same, except writing some letters requesting for certain concessions. Only the Unions and Associations of the Non-Executives and Executives are fighting the battle to save BSNL and MTNL. But to bring changes in the policies of the Government in favour of Public Sector and in favour of the people, a big struggle of the entire working class and the people is required. Until then, the struggles in a particular industry are necessary atleast to get some concessions.
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