Minister for communications and IT A. Raja has approached the Ministry of Finance to seek reimbursement of the Rs 295.98 billion that has been paid by the state-owned Bharat Sanchar Nigam Limited (BSNL) and Mahanagar Telephone Nigam Limited (MTNL) for 3

Minister for communications and IT A. Raja has approached the Ministry of Finance to seek reimbursement of the Rs 295.98 billion that has been paid by the state-owned Bharat Sanchar Nigam Limited (BSNL) and Mahanagar Telephone Nigam Limited (MTNL) for 3G spectrum. Their reasoning is that they were not given the option to not participate in the recently held auctions and were required to match the highest bid for both 3G and BWA spectrum. The minister further stated that broadband wireless access (BWA) spectrum is being used by BSNL to enhance rural connectivity, which will become economically unviable for the operator since the costing for this project has been done without accounting for the increase in the cost of BWA spectrum over the reserve price. MTNL, on the other hand, has undertaken a huge debt to pay for the 3G and BWA spectrum used by it to provide services in the hyper-competitive circles of Delhi and Mumbai.