The Union Cabinet headed by Prime Minister Manmohan Singh accepted recommendation of the empowered group of ministers that all existing mobile phone companies must pay one-time spectrum charge.
A bench of justices G S Singhvi and K S Radhakrishnan, which extended the August 31, 2012 deadline for completing the auction process, made it clear that no court in the country will entertain any plea on this issue of 2G spectrum.
Telecom companies have put in bids worth Rs 58,332 crore (Rs 583.32 billion) in spectrum auction at the end of 49 rounds on the 7th day of bidding on Monday.
Trai had proposed the process for linking 3G spectrum price with 2G spectrum in order to give level playing field to all operators.
The issue was raised by Janata Dal (United) chief Sharad Yadav who alleged that the government lost as much as Rs 1 lakh crore (Rs 1 trillion) because of 'wrong policies' of the telecom department while Communist Party of India-Marxist leader Basudeb Acharia dubbed it as the 'biggest scam'.
The government expects to garner about Rs 5,000 crore (Rs 50 billion) from the existing mobile operators such as Airtel, Vodafone and Idea by imposing a one-time fee on those who are holding spectrum beyond the threshold limit of 6.2 Mhz, a move which will raise the cost of radio frequency.
Bihar Chief Minister Nitish Kumar and Janata Dal-United national president Lalan Singh arrived together at the party's office in New Delhi on Thursday to attend its office-bearers meeting amid intense buzz about changes within the organisation.
The Bharatiya Janata Party on Monday said that the allotment of 2G spectrum licences by the Union ministry of telecommunications to private companies was 'the largest scam in Independent India' and it had cost the government Rs 60,000 crore (Rs 600 billion).
Senior official from the department of telecommunication said the deck has been cleared and the department will handover the spectrum to the operators on Wednesday.
The empowered group of ministers has been reconstituted after Pranab Mukherjee, who was heading it, resigned as Finance Minister to contest the Presidential elections.
Spectrum auction ends, brings Rs 1.09 tln to govt kitty.
The CBI on Thursday conducted searches in the offices of the wireless planning cell, the department responsible for allocating spectrum, and the office of deputy director general (access services) at the ministry headquarters in New Delhi.
Airbus Helicopters will partner with the Tata Group to establish a final assembly line for helicopters in the country, a development that will help in boosting indigenous manufacturing activities. This will be the second final assembly line that will be built by Airbus in India after the 'Make in India' C295 military aircraft manufacturing facility in Gujarat. The Final Assembly Line (FAL) will produce Airbus H125 helicopters from its civil range for India and for exporting to some of the neighbouring countries, Airbus Helicopter said in a statement.
India and China have transformed their once "adversarial relationship" to that of a "full spectrum" one and there was no reason to doubt the neighbours' ability to solve differences in the future, National Security Adviser Shiv Shankar Menon said on Friday.
While the highest bid so far for any circle has been for Delhi, at Rs 416.43 crore (Rs 4.16 billion), Gujarat is just a tad behind, with a bid of Rs 416.42 crore (Rs 4.16 billion).
The government on Friday said the telecom operators, who had bagged 3G spectrum in the auction held recently, would be allocated airwaves from September 1, paving way for launch of high-speed mobile broadband services.
Having achieved a subscriber base of over 10 lakh in Mumbai, state owned Mahanagar Telephone Nigam Ltd has approached the government for an additional frequency of two MHz to expand its cellular mobile services.
The sharing agreement will provide more bandwidth for RJIL to provide its high-speed 4G services.
The Telecom Commission (TC) on Saturday put the onus of deciding the contentious issue of the base price for auction of 1,800 MHz of 2G band spectrum on the Empowered Group of Ministers (EGoM) headed by Finance Minister Pranab Mukherjee.
Within a week of the Telecom Regulatory Authority of India giving its final recommendations on the valuation and pricing of spectrum, Chairman Rahul Khullar speaks to Business Standard on the process the regulator followed in finalising the much-debated issue.
Bharti Airtel on Monday posted a 54 per cent jump in consolidated net profit to Rs 2,442.2 crore in the December quarter, mainly on account of growth in high value customers. Airtel prepaid mobile customers are required to pay at least Rs 155 for about a month-long service as the company had raised rates by 56 per cent in January 2023. Bharti Airtel managing director Gopal Vittal has indicated a need for further increase in mobile services rates.
License agreements are expected to be signed with all the nine LoI holders in the next two days and spectrum would be allotted subsequently, to begin with, in those circles where it is available readily, telecom ministry officials said. Four firms have got LoIs for pan-India operations while others have got for additional circles. The nine companies are Unitech, Datacom, Shyam Telelink, Loop Telecom, S Tel, Swan Telecom, Spice Telecom, Idea and Tata Teleservices.
He said TRAI recommendations on 2G spectrum allocation were currently being reviewed by the Union finance minister and the Prime Minister's Office.
Defence officials contend that the services do not use spectrum for 'commercial purposes' and therefore do not need to pay for it.
A remarkable story which helped in transforming a bureaucratic organization, to a customer centric organization. This experience may inspire several government / private organizations to modify or adopt digitisation to transform their business, notes Professor N Ravichandran (retd).
Understated or elegant, flirty or playful -- whatever your style, these designers have a tip for you.
Spectrum Retail Mart, a retail chain of medical stores and fast moving consumer goods, has set up shop in Mumbai with an initial investment of over Rs 90 crore (Rs 900 million).
Special CBI Judge O P Saini adjourned Monday's proceedings in the wake of stay granted by the Supreme Court on separate pleas filed by Mittal and Ruia challenging the March 19 order of the trial court summoning them as accused in the case.
The GSM Association, a union of 650 GSM mobile phone service operators, asked India not to allocate spectrum at 1900 MHz to CDMA operators like Reliance.
The Standing Committee on Information Technology has decided to have briefing on allocating spectrum for the existing services and introduction of 3G services from department of telecommunication, an official communication said. Mobile operators have been demanding additional spectrum from the Government for 2G services, where they have more subscribers.
'Spectrum payment to push up telcos' debt to Rs 3.5 lakh cr'
Although the BJP has never been ballistic about the BJD and Narendra Modi has avoided being critical of Naveen Patnaik, the BJP is optimistic that the party can improve its electoral fortunes in Odisha on its own, notes Rup Narayan Das.
The government has plans for the third round of spectrum auction and may put on block 2G GSM airwaves in Delhi and Mumbai circles, and CDMA spectrum in 13 circles that remained unsold in the previous sale held in March, according to sources.
The 'presumptive loss to the exchequer' from 2G allocations actually represents a huge benefit to citizens.
It is because of the Comptroller & Auditor General that we know all isn't well in the murky world of government purchases and the allocation of resources.
According to a study, the change in frequency for transmitting mobile signals could cost the telcos over Rs 1 lakh crore (Rs 1 trillion) cumulatively.
The government has projected to garner up to Rs 35,000 crore (Rs 350 billion) from sale of radiowaves, mainly 3G spectrum, to telecom operators in the current financial year.
In a surprise move that could deprive it of over Rs 5,000 crore (Rs 55 billion) in revenue, the government has said the 3G telephony spectrum available with it for sale currently could accommodate only three operators.
