The Department of Telecommunications (DoT) has asked the Telecom Regulatory Authority of India (TRAI) to monitor the utilisation of spectrum by telecom operators.
The move comes as a result of the Comptroller and Auditor General (CAG) terming DoT?s approach to review the quality of services provided by the operators as ?lax.?
Earlier, the Comptroller and Auditor General (CVC) had asked DoT to submit a progress report pertaining to 21 remedial points, as suggested in a report prepared by Justice Shivraj Patil. The committee was established by Kapil Sibal, minister of communications and IT to examine possible irregularities in the process of awarding telecom licences and allotting spectrum between 2001 and 2009.
In a written correspondence to CVC, DoT has said that it has submitted detailed information on spectrum allocations. In these documents, DoT has elaborated that the notice inviting applications for the recently concluded auctions had detailed the rollout obligations to ensure efficient use of spectrum. DoT has explained that it has decided to levy a one-time charge on GSM and CDMA operators holding spectrum beyond 4.4 MHz and 2.5 MHz, respectively.
