The Group of Ministers, set up to discuss the issue of the defence services vacating spectrum for mobile services, has decided to set up a technical assessment committee with possibly three members to examine which non-critical bands can be offered to telecom operators.

The members could include National Security Advisor M K Narayanan, the secretary, Department of Telecommunications, and the secretary, Ministry of Defence.

The GoM is chaired by External Affairs Minister Pranab Mukherjee and consists of Defence Minister A K Antony, Home Minister Shivraj Patil, Finance Minister P Chidambaram, Minister of Information and Broadcasting Priyaranjan Dasmunsi and Communications Minister A Raja.

"We have made our point... The progress is good... There will be a technical assessment committee within the GoM. It will look into which areas spectrum will be vacated," Raja said.

The GoM is likely to meet again once the committee is formed.

The GoM also went through a presentation prepared by the Wireless Planning and Coordinating Wing of the Department of Telecommunication, which detailed the need for the defence services to vacate spectrum, the methods used in other countries like France and the UK to do so, etc.

The DoT has contended that the Ministry of Defence had agreed to vacate 40 MHz of spectrum for both current and next-generation services in the first phase.

The DoT and the Ministry of Defence have had serious differences over the issue of spectrum.

The defence ministry has made it clear that the cost for an alternative communication channel will require Rs 3,000 crore-Rs 4,000, more than double the Rs 1040  crore that DoT has estimated.

The defence secretary had suggested that the two should sign a memorandum so that an appropriate communication network for the defence services could become more certain.