This refers to ‘Can Manmohan ditch Raja?’ (October 26). The column must been seen in view of political compulsions under which the present Congress-led UPA government works. Given a free hand, Manmohan Singh would not have included A Raja in the cabinet and in any case would not have given him the present portfolio he holds.
The defence forces are major users of spectrum owing to the mobile nature of military operations. A rapid increase in the number of mobile-phone users in India has led to a rise in the demand for spectrum. This had led the government to study various methods to get the defence forces to vacate spectrum including the building of an optical fiber cable(OFC) network for them.
The money raised by auction of 3G spectrum will finance the OFC network. However, the efforts in this direction are not making any progress.
Your contention that Solicitor General and TDSAT have approved of Raja’s moves begs a question: What is CBI trying to unearth if everything is clear and above board? The allocation of the telecom ministry to Raja has failed to inspire the confidence of various players and the recent investigation into 2G spectrum allocations shows the opaque nature of operations. This has dented the UPA’s reputation when it comes to probity in public life.
M M Gurbaxani, Bangalore