The 3G wars seem to be getting hotter by the day, going by the number of newspaper columns they’re hogging. Finance Minister Pranab Mukherjee shot off a letter to Communications Minister A Raja saying the 3G auctions had to happen this year since the budget was depending upon Rs 30,000 crore from the auctions. Raja was quick to reply that, as head of the Group of Ministers on it, it was Mukherjee’s job to ensure the defence ministry released the required spectrum. The defence ministry then claimed that it had released the spectrum, only to be told that the spectrum it had ‘released’ never really belonged to it and, in any case, this had already been allotted to BSNL/MTNL.
Given this back and forth on the issue, it is doubtful if even the new date for the auctions will be kept.
N Kumar, on email
