No plan to withdraw 2G spectrum: DoT

NEW DELHI: Department of telecom ( DoT) secretary and telecom commission chairman R Chandrasekhar said that there was no plan to withdraw 2G spectrum allotted in 2008 from any of the players.

India’s chief auditor, CAG has said that many of the licences given to five of the nine telecom companies were illegal, reports Gulveen Aulakh. Swan (now Etisalat), Datacom (Videocon), Unitech (which ceded majority control to Norways Telenor), Sistema-Shyam and Essar Group-owned Loop Telecom were given pan-India licences and airwaves for a mere `1,651 crore each.

Apart from these five companies, Reliance Communications and Tata Teleservices were also given GSM and CDMA licences, at prices fixed in 2001. In comparison, auction of 3G airwaves early this year fetched the government Rs 66,718 crore. “At this moment, there is no proposal before the department to take back any of the spectrum from any of the players,” Mr Chandrasekhar said.