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Mr Mukesh Ambani, Chairman, Reliance Industries, sharing a moment with Mr Rajan B. Mittal, Joint Managing Director, Bharti, watched by (2nd from left) Mr Prithipal Singh, CMD, BSNL, Mr Vinod Vaish, Secretary, DoT, Mr. Ashim Ghosh, MD, Hutchison, and Mr S. Ramakrishnan, MD, Tata Teleservices, at the second meeting of the group on telecom, set up by the Minister for Communications, Mr Arun Shourie, in the Capital on Friday.

NEW DELHI, Feb. 21

THE telecom committee constituted by the Communications Minister, Mr Arun Shourie, to solve the contentious issues between the cellular and limited mobility operators, has decided to seek an adjournment of the cases that are coming up for hearing by the Telecom Dispute Settlement Appellate Tribunal (TDSAT) on Monday.

Briefing the media after the second round of meeting held today, the Telecom Secretary, Mr Vinod Vaish, noted that while "some" consensus has been reached on a few issues, the committee would be meeting again on March 3 to deliberate further.

Mr Shourie had set a deadline of March 1, for the committee to finalise its report, however, it has had to be postponed by two days because of pending assignments of a few members, he said.

While declining to state whether there will be more meetings scheduled after March 3, Mr Vaish noted that it might take a little more time because all the members have agreed that long-term solutions need to be arrived at if the telecom sector has to move forward.

The committee has on its agenda three main items, which include the provision of "roaming" by limited mobility operators, restricting the service to the short distance charging area (SDCA) and provisions for protecting the smaller operators.

The two-hour meeting was attended by Mr Mukesh Ambani, CMD, Reliance, Mr Rajan Mittal, JMD, Bharti, Mr S. Ramakrishnan, MD, Tata Teleservices, Mr Ashim Ghosh, CEO, Hutch, Mr Rajeev Chandrasekhar, Chairman, BPL Mobile, and Mr Prithipal Singh, CMD, BSNL.

They come calling this time

THE big two telecom companies - Bharti and Reliance - whose representatives skipped the first meeting held on February 17, would have stayed away today too, had it not been for a missive from the Department of Telecommunications stating that unless they were present, no solutions could be expected.

According to sources, the Telecom Secretary, Mr Vinod Vaish, shot off a letter to both the companies, expressing his disappointment at their absence on Monday.

However this time around too, Mr Sunil Mittal could not make it as he was out of the country on business, and as such it would have been impossible to attend today's meeting. He instead deputed Mr Rajan Mittal to take his place.

Mr Mukesh Ambani made his appearance after a meeting with the Telecom Regulatory Authority of India to explain his position on "roaming". It may be recalled that the authority had sought an explanation from Reliance for advertising that its limited mobility customers can roam in 673 cities across the country.

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