NDA govt's 1999 telecom policy under JPC radar

The Centre digs into old telecom files cleared by NDA govt to calculate 'losses'

The Joint Parliamentary Committee (JPC), probing alleged irregularities in the allocation of 2G licences by jailed IT and communication minister A Raja, is now digging into the old telecom files dating back to the BJP-led government in 1999.

The panel is now calculating the alleged losses the nation suffered due to the telecom policy of migrating from fixed licence fee regime to revenue sharing laid out by the BJP-led National Democratic Alliance (NDA) government, JPC chairman PC Chacko told reporters.

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Senior BJP leaders Jaswant Singh and Yashwant Sinha, who were cabinet ministers in the NDA government, could be called as witnesses before the JPC.

Chacko, a senior Congress leader, said that at the day-long meeting the empowered panel looked into the government auditor's report of 2000 that has mentioned about the losses suffered by the change in telecom policy approved by the then cabinet in July 1999.

"The CAG has made adverse remarks about migration from fixed licence fee regime to revenue sharing regime," Chacko said.

He added that the policy was implemented when Pramod Mahajan of BJP was the communication minister.

He said many telecom firms had not shared the revenue with the government. The committee wanted to know the reasons for it and what action had the telecom department taken to correct the losses.

Chacko said the 2000 report of the Comptroller and Auditor General (CAG) had not quantified the losses because the figures were not available then.

"Now the figures are available, we have asked telecom secretary to quantify the losses," Chacko said.

Asked if panel members from opposition parties objected to digging out old skeletons as the 1999 policy shift related to the BJP-led government, Chacko said: "There was no division on political lines.
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Everybody agreed."
He said BJP's Jaswant Singh and Yashwant Sinha, who were cabinet ministers in 1999 and are now on the JPC, could be called as witnesses before the panel.