15, ఫిబ్రవరి 2012, బుధవారం

It is better to Nationalize private telecom services companies


Mobile phone services companies require spectrum for their services for carrying the voice, data and messages. Spectrum is nothing but electro -magnetic waves in the air. It is the property of the nation and hence is a public good. Then why it should be allotted to the private telecom operators at dead cheap rates? The Supreme Court cancelled 122 licenses granted in 2008  for the private telecom operators on the ground that the allotment of spectrum at dead cheap rate on the basis of first come first serve rule violating the Government of India’s Transaction of business rules was illegal. But on the same grounds, the allotment of 73 licenses along with allotment of spectrum during the period 2001 to 2007 was also illegal. Similarly the allotment of 37 licenses where the GSM spectrum was allotted to CDMA spectrum holders during this period also were illegal. Since the case of the illegality of these 110(73+37) licenses did not come before the Supreme Court, these licenses were not cancelled. 

Thus altogether 122+110=232 licenses are required to be cancelled along with the cancellation of the allotment of spectrum to them. The spectrum allotted to them has to be taken back by the Government and it has to be auctioned. But who will participate in the auction? The Companies like Uninor, Sistema(MTS), Loop etc whose licenses were cancelled by the Supreme Court are demanding that only they should be allowed in the auction and not the older licensees like Airtel, Vodafone etc whose licenses are not cancelled. But the older licensees are demanding that they also should be allowed in the auction. Each group is interpreting the Supreme Court judgment in its favor for this purpose. Each group is bringing pressure on the Government. 

But the question is why should the spectrum which is the natural resource and hence property of the nation be allotted to these private operators who are greedy for profits without caring for the self reliant development of the telecom sector? They have procured all the equipment required for the expansion of their network from the foreign telecom equipment manufacturers and thus handed over more than 5 lakh  crore rupees to these foreign companies, thus causing a huge drain of our valuable resources to the foreign countries and killing our indigenous manufacture of telecom equipment and killing the domestic research and development in telecom technology. They also are causing threat to our national security by allowing the foreign telecom equipment manufacturers to install, maintain and operate their telecom networks.  

The only way out for a self reliant development of our telecom sector is to nationalize all these private telecom companies so that the telecom services are maintained by the public sector in the interest of the country and the people.


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