The Telecom Regulatory Authority of India (TRAI) has informed the Central Bureau of Investigation (CBI) that it did not recommend auctioning spectrum or increasing the entry fee for new players.
In a written communication to the CBI, R.K. Arnold, secretary, TRAI said, “TRAI has repeatedly held the view that telecom services and spectrum should not be treated as a source of revenue for the government. It is against this background that TRAI did not recommend, even in August 2007, the auction methodology, nor did it recommend any increase in the entry fee for new players.?
Arnold also said that a TRAI committee examining the value of spectrum stated that it was impossible to predict with certainty, the precise value of the spectrum that would have emerged in an auction. Therefore, he added that the risk of error in the estimates increases since the exercise is carried out retrospectively and with meager data.
The regulator’s stance bolsters former Minister of Telecommunications and IT, A. Raja and former telecom secretary, Siddhartha Behura?s claims that the awarding of 122 mobile permits in January 2008 did not cause any loss to the exchequer. Raja and Behura have told the CBI special court that the government had followed the policies of the previous NDA regime and the recommendations of TRAI.
The CBI, which is investigating the 2G spectrum issue, had asked TRAI to quantify the losses to the government on account of allocating spectrum to operators between 2001 and 2008.
Prior to this, the CBI had said that the 2G spectrum issue had caused a loss of Rs 220 billion to the exchequer, but later revised this figure to Rs 300 billion. The Enforcement Directorate had estimated that the loss to the exchequer was about Rs 500 billion. The Comptroller and Auditor General of India, however, had said that the loss amounted to Rs 1.77 trillion.
