Another House panel hit back at DoT on 2G

While Parliament's Public Accounts Committee (PAC) has given its report on the 2G spectrum scam and the Joint Parliamentary Committee (JPC) moves fast to give its report before August-end, yet another parliamentary committee has quietly completed its probe into the irregularities in the 2G licences, issued in January 2008 by then Telecom Minister A Raja, now cooling heels in Tihar Jails here.

The Parliamentary Standing Committee on Information Technology has blasted the Department of Telecom (DoT) for not cancelling 74 licences for the Unified Access Services (UAS) as recommended by the Telecom Regulatory Authority of India (TRAI). It suspects something basically wrong with DoT in favouring the defaulters instead of punishing them.

It was shocked to note that DoT issued show-cause notices only to five or six telecom firms and that too only in March- April for the formality and referred back 64 cases to TRAI for reconsideration.

The defaulter companies include those who were given licences tweaking the rules and who are now facing the CBI probe. The committee is understood to have noted in its report that the telecom firms that faulted in rolling out the services should have been dealt with sternly.