Rajya Sabha MP and former telecom entrepreneur Rajeev Chandrasekhar has questioned the spectrum issues raised by Tata Group supremo Ratan Tata while reminding him that his group company was a major beneficiary of the same.
Accusing Tatas of adopting double standards, he said in an open letter to Tata that "by virtue of dual technology - according to the CAG, your company has caused a loss to the Exchequer to the tune of about Rs 19,074.8 crore."
He said Tata Group was one of the major beneficiaries of recent telecom policy by getting GSM spectrum out of turn while 343 applicants are still waiting.
Tatas reacted sharply to the open letter and said it was surprisingly devoid of facts and was meant to sensationalise matters. None of the issues are based on facts as they exist on the ground.
Tata Teleservices Ltd has always followed government policy and regulations and has applied for any service only after the government has allowed the same," Tatas said in a statement.
In fact, Chandrasekhar said that TRAI had recommended on May 11, 2010, that no more UASL licence with bundled spectrum can be given. This means that these 343 applications will never be processed and will never see spectrum.
The Tatas put in their dual technology applications three weeks after the 575 applications for 2G were received out of which 122 were given licences, 110 rejected and 343 were kept in abeyance, he said.
"You (Tata) will accept that this seems to be a case of arriving late, forming a new queue, jumping the priority and accusing others of getting priority on spectrum allocation and meets your point of out-of-turn allocation of spectrum.
"I am sure the 373 applicants who were rejected for no fault of theirs, will agree - while the Tata Group has sold its equity for billions of dollars to NTT Docomo based on its out-of-turn GSM allocation on dual technology policy," he said.
As also on hoarding of spectrum by old GSM operators, a charge labeled by Ratan Tata, Chandrasekhar said that TTSL perhaps holds more spectrum (combined CDMA and GSM) than any other operators and still serves least number of subscribers.
In response, Tatas said TTSL applied for dual-technology only after it was announced and was the first and only legitimate applicant, but still the company is yet to get spectrum in Delhi and 39 other key districts in nine telecom circles.
The company even followed the policy of WLL in letter and spirit, and shifted to Unified Access Service Licence (UASL) only after the policy was announced by the government, TTSL statement added.