We could look at different ways of allocating spectrum: Kapil Sibal

Union telecom minister Kapil Sibal has a task at hand. He has to steer the spectrum auctions, look into issues of one-time spectrum fee, 3G roaming and develop policies to propel growth in the sector. He spoke to Priyanka Sahay on policy, trends and the way ahead. Excerpts from the interview:

You have been talking quite a lot about the Supreme Court judgement on the cancellation of the licences. Would it be right saying that the whole concept of the
auction was not called for?

No, I think our perception of how a particular resources should be disposed of depends on the circumstances in which you are based. The resource should be disposed of in a particular manner in a given circumstances may well not be a manner in which it should be disposed of in another circumstance.

The Supreme Court had very good intentions, thought the best way to move forward was to put all these things for auctions and that the government would get a fair amount of revenue if the licences were cancelled, but the circumstances changed. There is no fault of the court that's not anybody's fault but the circumstances completely changed. So in the present circumstances this particular spectrum will not fetch any money.

Not the kind of money the CAG (Comptroller and Auditor General) was talking about, which is why we have been saying that the decision to dispose of a particular asset in any particular manner is a matter of policy and should always be left to the government and if there is any aberration in the manner in which the assets is being disposed of and there is any violation of constitutional principles the courts should interfere.

So I think if this broad parameter is accepted by all institutional authorities under the Constitution, I think the system would work better.

Could we go back to first-come-first-serve policy?

No no, I don't think we have taken a policy decision that we now .... you cannot have a licence in which there is embedded spectrum which was the original policy; we can't go back to that stage and there is enough potential of growth in the market that any allocation of spectrum will fetch a fair amount of revenue as we more forward to 4G. So I don't think we can go back to the first-come- first-serve policy, but within the policy options we have, we may have to look at different ways of actually allocating spectrum.

What could be those ways?

I don't think these are very special and specialised matters. You know particular bands of spectrum which should be sold have different qualities. 4G has one set of quality so all that depends on so many factors and I don't think that the minister of the government of India should be really talking about those technical issues and options which depend on expert evidence, which is why even I as minister do not comment on these issues. But once the policy options are decided then of course I can decide sitting with my expert as to which is the best way forward in the light of our objectives for the sector.

So will these options will be non-auctions based models?

No why should anybody talk about non-auction based models. Whatever you are hearing in the media is complete misinformation.

What is the status of the third round of auction?

The EGoM will decide as to how to move forward. We will go to the EGoM in a couple of weeks hopefully.

Which bands will be put up for the auction?

Well, we have to first implement the orders of the Supreme Court, then we will talk of other things.

So this auction will have all the remaining spectrum which got cancelled in 2011?

In four circles there were no bids in the 900 MHz band, the licences of 900 MHz are expiring in 2014, so that has to be moved forward. Then in 18 circles the 1800 MHz was not bid, that has to be moved forward, so all that will happen in the congnisance of the SC order; so this is the next step. The question of auction of 700 MHz will come much later. It will not happen one after the other; the 700 will happen only in 2014.

Given the scenario where the operators are having differences with the government, where do you think the industry is moving?

First of all, they are having differences among themselves and then there is a court order whichh as again nothing to do with government; so one they are fighting with each other; two there is a court order and we are honestly implementing it.

First of all, the industry must be at peace with itself in order to move ahead. The industry has enormous potential. If you ask me, the one sector which will grow exponentially in the next 10-15 years is telecom IT because India will have a digital highway in the years to come.

Given the scenario are you optimistic about the third round of auctions?

I am very optimistic about the third round of auctions.

The operators have been saying that the reserve price has been too high. Is the government comfortable in reducing the reserve price?

What can we do? There is a court prescription that the auction is to be done just the way 3G was done. So we do not want to fall into the same trap that Raja (former telecom minister) fell into. That if you give it at a giveaway price then somebody five years down the road will tell us why did you give the national asset at that price; so we are therefore  consistently following the SC judgement.

It is not a question of comfortable or not comfortable. We will first decide this in the EGoM, this is not for any individual minister to decide. We have already reduced the price substantially whether that price will be reduced further or not and how much will be reduced the EGoM will decide.

On a personal note as a human being are you bothered by all the criticism media has over many your issues?

We all are bothered. Aren't you bothered when I tell you that you guys are irresponsible some times. If somebody alleges that to me I am certainly bothered. Why should I
not be bothered.

Why is the telecom minister not active on social media unlike his other cabinet colleagues?

Which minister is? the finance minister is not, the home minister is not, the defence minister is not, the rural development minister is not. So 95% of the ministers are not active. That's a personal decision whether I am active or not ... there is no national policy of the government of India that every minister must be on the social media.

Whatever the government does should be put up on the public domain that is nothing to do with being on Twitter on Facebook but something to do with government policy that the best way to communicating with people with a medium which was not available earlier it is good to use that media.

That is why it is good to use the social networking sites to put out what the government has done for the country and for the aam aadmi.

Can we expect something the telecom ministry coming up with something similar soon (on the lines of the Ministry of Information and Broadcasting going online way)?

Yes, we are setting up a huge platform something like gov.in, where we are connecting the people to the government and the policies of the government. We are setting up sites where if you just touch the button you will get government policies in various sectors. We are actually connecting schemes to people.

If you want to know what schemes a minority ministry has for Muslim community or for the minority we are having a site for that. It's a platform of the government. We are doing huge work in this area. Internet is the most empowering platform in the world today and we must use it every possible way to make sure that the government programmes reach people.

You are MP from Delhi and at this point in time are the Congress's chance of retaining these seven seats looking good?

I am not a speculator. We are confident that the Congress party will come back to power in 2014. How many seats I get where is something that will have to be assessed at the time of the selection, it is too early for us. I can understand a lot of media channels speculating for the BJP and we are hearing these reports everyday .... national poll of a particular newspaper this morning. We are confident of a win despite what the soothsayers says and speculators say.

Congress had a clean swipe in urban areas. If there anything specific that the government has planned for the urban middle class?

I think the urban renewable schemes. Look at the face of Delhi it has changed so radically in the last 10 years or so. I think the face of the city all over the country is changing. the connectivity that is happening is revolutionary. So I think that we as a government have done a lot of the things for the urban middle class but have not been able to sustain the kind of growth that we hoped for which enforces constraining our effort. 

Because if we had growth continuously at 8% the benefits would have been far more widespread, but we are doing our best for every section of society and a lot for the urban middle class.