New policy helped dual tech firms

CAG has observed that Reliance Communications, Tata Teleservices, HFCL and Shyam Telelink benefited from communication minister A Raja’s decision to allow CDMA players to offer GSM services.

CAG has observed that Reliance Communications, Tata Teleservices, HFCL and Shyam Telelink benefited from communication minister A Raja’s decision to allow CDMA players to offer GSM services.

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This decision, however, was taken without referring the matter to the full telecom commission even when it involved allocation of spectrum in 2007 at the 2001 price.

“Dual technology was also introduced by the DoT in October 2007 in a hasty and arbitrary manner, and in-principle approval was given to three operators on a day prior to the announcement of the policy, which gave the perception of discrimination against other players in the field,” the CAG report noted.