Cell firms seek PM's intervention

The Cellular Operator's Association of India (COAI) today took a delegation to the Prime Minister's office to seek Atal Bihari Vajpayee's intervention for immediate implementation of the August 8 order passed by the Telecom Dispute Settlement Appellate Tribunal (TDSAT). The delegation also met senior officials of the Telecom Regulatory Authority of India (Trai).

The delegation included Sunil Mittal, chairman and managing director of the Bharti group; Rajeev Chandrashekhar, chairman of BPL Mobile; B K Modi, chairman of Spice Corp; Dilip Modi, vice-chairman of COAI; T V Ramachandran, director- general of COAI, and Virat Bhatia, managing director (corporate affairs) of AT&T India. The move, according to telecom company executives, was necessitated since the department of telecom (DoT) had not taken any action on the tribunal's order.

The COAI delegation separately met Brajesh Mishra, principal secretary to the prime minister, and D P S Seth, member of Trai, and briefed them about the DoT's inaction.

Earlier Ratan Tata, chairman of theTata group and Mukesh Ambani, chairman of Reliance Industries, had met Communication Minister Arun Shourie on the same issue. The basic operators association had written to DoT asking to ignore the Trai directive and not change the licence conditions of wireless local loop services.

The tribunal had suggested the government make sure that mobility of WLL services was limited within a short distance charging area. It had also suggested an entry fee for WLL operators and spectrum charges. Subsequently, Trai had also written to DoT on August 14 on the issue.