NEW DELHI: The telecom department may seek an extension of the Supreme Court mandated August 31 deadline to
conduct the airwaves auctions as the panel of ministers overseeing the sale
process will have to be reconstituted under a new chairman, an official aware of
the development told ET.
This comes as finance minister Pranab Mukherjee who heads the Empowered Group of Ministers (EGoM) that will finalise the modalities of the auctions is slated to resign on Tuesday and file his nomination for the Presidential poll.
Last week, this panel of ministers headed by FM and Presidential candidate of the UPA, had deferred its crucial meeting to decide on the spectrum reserve price for the upcoming airwaves auction.
In addition to the reserve price, the EGoM was also slated to take a call on a slew of key policy issues, including spectrum usage charge, rollout obligations, staggered payment for airwaves secured through auctions and whether operators could mortgage airwaves and secure funding from banks.
"We are trying our best to meet the court appointed deadline. If the panel of ministers can be reconstituted under a new chairman and decisions can be taken by July 5, then we are on track. But after July 5, every day will add to the timeline," another top telecom department official told ET.
Telecom department officials say reserve price and other auction modalities will have to be finalized by early July for the communication ministry to stick to their current plan and release the information memorandum containing all details of the sale on August 6.
Even this scenario will leave the government with just 25 days to conduct the pre-bid conference, issue clarifications, invite applications for the sale process, check compliance and carry out the bidding process. This 25 day-period will be much less than the four months that lapsed between the release of the information memorandum and the completion of the 3G auctions in 2010.
It is also learnt that the new EGoM when constituted may have a wider mandate that will include addressing the modalities related to refarming, the redistribution of the more efficient airwaves, currently held by incumbents, between all players.
Incumbent GSM operators, especially Bharti, Vodafone and Idea have slammed the government's proposal on refarming stating that it would render their investment of over Rs 150,000 crore in networks redundant.
This comes as finance minister Pranab Mukherjee who heads the Empowered Group of Ministers (EGoM) that will finalise the modalities of the auctions is slated to resign on Tuesday and file his nomination for the Presidential poll.
Last week, this panel of ministers headed by FM and Presidential candidate of the UPA, had deferred its crucial meeting to decide on the spectrum reserve price for the upcoming airwaves auction.
In addition to the reserve price, the EGoM was also slated to take a call on a slew of key policy issues, including spectrum usage charge, rollout obligations, staggered payment for airwaves secured through auctions and whether operators could mortgage airwaves and secure funding from banks.
"We are trying our best to meet the court appointed deadline. If the panel of ministers can be reconstituted under a new chairman and decisions can be taken by July 5, then we are on track. But after July 5, every day will add to the timeline," another top telecom department official told ET.
Telecom department officials say reserve price and other auction modalities will have to be finalized by early July for the communication ministry to stick to their current plan and release the information memorandum containing all details of the sale on August 6.
Even this scenario will leave the government with just 25 days to conduct the pre-bid conference, issue clarifications, invite applications for the sale process, check compliance and carry out the bidding process. This 25 day-period will be much less than the four months that lapsed between the release of the information memorandum and the completion of the 3G auctions in 2010.
It is also learnt that the new EGoM when constituted may have a wider mandate that will include addressing the modalities related to refarming, the redistribution of the more efficient airwaves, currently held by incumbents, between all players.
Incumbent GSM operators, especially Bharti, Vodafone and Idea have slammed the government's proposal on refarming stating that it would render their investment of over Rs 150,000 crore in networks redundant.
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