Kapil Sibal, Minister of Telecommunications and IT has moved a motion in the Rajya Sabha for the setting up of a Joint Parliamentary Committee (JPC) on the 2G spectrum issue, according to news reports.
The Committee, to be made up of 30 members, will have a majority of representatives from the Congress and its allies; the balance will come from different Opposition parties.
The spectrum issue, according to the government’s auditor, may have cost the country upto Rs 1.76 trillion. It saw companies getting mobile licenses at rock-bottom prices.
Sibal in Parliament today echoed the line of defence that the Prime Minister has taken in recent weeks -that the basic policies followed for the allocation of 2G spectrum in 2008 were not faulty, but their implementation was faulty. The first-come first-serve policy – which was chosen instead of an auction of valuable spectrum – is the main reason for India turning into a nation of cellphone users, he said. He added that the process of implementation was manipulated.
