Maran's exit may make his policies go askew
The abrupt end to Dayanidhi Maran's tenure as Communications and IT Minister at the Centre could deliver a severe jolt to many of the policies that he espoused.
By PTI |
NEW DELHI: The abrupt end to Dayanidhi Maran's tenure as Communications and IT Minister at the Centre could deliver a severe jolt to many of the policies that he espoused.
The 41-year-old DMK leader's biggest achievement was hard-selling India to global telecom and IT equipment manufacturers.
He got Nokia, the world's largest mobile phone maker, to finally set up a manufacturing unit in India, besides others like Ericsson and Motorola. Many IT companies too started making allied products in the country.
However, measures initiated by him to provide cheaper bandwidth, broadband services and roaming rates, bring about the 3G policy and divert Internet traffic within the country by hosting servers in India could get stuck after his exit.
He also faced accusations of directing most of these investments toward Chennai -- his home base.
Maran was successful in brining the first chip manufacturing facility into the country when AMD signed a technological pact with SemIndia, an NRI-backed consortium for a 3-billion dollar project in Hyderabad.
The minister's entry into the Union Cabinet, like his exit now, was equally dramatic and he tried his best to match his predecessors like Arun Shourie, Pramod Mahajan and Ram Vilas Paswan during whose tenure litigation, disinvestment and reforms in the telecom sector were at the peak.
Maran's brush with controversies started when he stepped into the domain of telecom regulator TRAI on the crucial issue of Access Deficit Charge, a fee paid by private operators to BSNL for its rural and remote area networks -- despite the TRAI Act making it clear that regulating tariffs and ADC was TRAI's domain.
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