Wednesday November 4, 03:45 AM

Source: Indian Express Finance

Telecom panel meeting on Nov 11 to review auctions

By Anandita Singh Mankotia
The inter-ministerial committee on 3-G spectrum and broadband wireless auction is slated to meet on November 11 to take stock of the situation for auctions slated to begin from January 14. Member finance in the telecom commission, the apex policy-making body of the department of telecommunications (DoT) constituted to conduct the auction, would head the committee. As per the timeline, the auction process would start from the second week of November with the pre-bid conference slated to be held on November 16. It is therefore proposed to hold a meeting of the inter-ministerial committee sometime after November 9, said a note prepared by the DoT. The committee is likely to look into the issue of spectrum vacation by the defence, which threatened to once again derail the 3-G spectrum auction. According to an MoU between the defence ministry and the DoT, the former is supposed to vacate 20 Mhz of 3-G spectrum that will be auctioned by the DoT. The inter-ministerial meeting follows a briefing from the auctioneer Rothschild on November 10. Meanwhile, speaking at the economic editors conference on Tuesday finance minister Pranab Mukherjee said, I have received some information and am aware of certain areas of differences. The defence ministry and the telecom ministry had signed an MoU towards the end of the last regime. I do hope that decisions will be taken in accordance to the letter and spirit of that MoU. The timeline and schedule for the auctions is to be decided by the ministry. We have appointed an empowered group of ministers and the ministry will have to implement the decisions taken by it. According to the information memorandum released by the DoT, the pre-bid conference would be held on November 16. Notices inviting tenders would be sent out on December 8 while December 21 would be the final date to apply. Mock auctions would be held on January 11 and 12 while final auction would be held beginning January 14 till January 25.