The home ministry and the Department of Industrial Policy and Promotion (DIPP) have rejected DoT’s proposal to allow foreign telecom operators to bid for 3G spectrum without an Indian partner and later select joint venture (JV) partners with clearance from the Foreign Investment Promotion Board (FIPB). According to DIPP, allowing a foreign company to bid on its own amounts to allowing 100 per cent FDI in the sector, which violates the 74 per cent FDI norm. The home ministry is of the view that doing so would imply a blanket security clearance for both the company as well as its potential partners. Since security screening takes place at multiple stages now ?? first, when the FDI is cleared by the FIPB and again, when spectrum is allocated ?? it would not be possible to give such flexibility to foreign firms.
