TTSL hits back at RS MP; asserts it never got any benefit

“We would,therefore,not be responding to any further statements from Mr Rajeev Chandrasekhar,as we find the debate created by him to be futile,” it said.

Earlier,Tata too had directly joined issue with Chandrasekhar after he wrote an open letter suggesting that Tata group benefited from changes in the telecom policy.

Commenting on TTSL’s statement,the MP said: “I reiterate the three questions I have been raising all along that with the formation of certain policies who benefited from these?”

He also said that best way was to have a public debate to tell the people of this country what went on in the telecom sector.

In the statement,Tatas’ flagship telecom company Tata Teleservices said,on the contrary,it has always been put behind in the queue as was evident from the fact that the company was yet to receive 2G spectrum in Delhi and 39 other locations even three years after paying the licence fee of Rs 1,651 crore.

Chandrasekhar had yesterday said that Tata companies were beneficiaries of the telecom policies especially dual technology and got spectrum out of turn.

He had also questioned former TRAI chairman Pradeep Baijal’s role for benefiting Tatas by recommending converting limited mobility into full mobility licences (called Unified Access Service Licence).

To this,TTSL said: “…linking a former regulator whose powers were only to make non-binding recommendations,insinuating that he granted huge benefits to Tata Tele – this is nothing but a cheap gimmick.”

The real beneficiaries of DoT’s “inconsistent and arbitrary” policies were incumbent GSM operators who were issued 48 GSM licences and allocated 65 MHz of additional spectrum free of charge,beyond the contracted spectrum,between 2004 and 2008,TTSL said.