Now, it’s CVC’s turn to inquire into allocations

The controversy over allocation of spectrum continues and now it’s the turn of the Central Vigilance Commission (CVC) to step in. CVC sources say that following a sheaf of complaints received by them on “unfair” allocation of spectrum casing huge losses to the national exchequer, they were given a presentation by a panel of technical experts on the subject and last month, asked the Department of Telecommunication (DoT) to send them a report on the criterion followed for the 2001 and 2007 spectrum allocations. Besides Parliamentarians and private companies running mobile networks, activist Arvind Kejriwal is among those understood to have lodged complaints with the CVC on the lack of transparency followed by DoT in spectrum allocations.

Following GSM allocations earlier this year to a bunch of companies for Rs 1660 crores each, it was alleged that the market price for the spectrum should have been much higher given the growth in the mobile telephony sector. Also, that the new norms allowing dual technology use and increased subscriber-linked criteria for allocation were unfair to the existing GSM operators.

CVC officials say that they will examine DoT’s response and decide on their course of intervention.