The Hindu Business Line : Spectrum talks make little headway

Face-off continues: Mr Sunil Bharti Mittal, Chairman, Bharti Enterprises, and Mr Anil Ambani, Chairman, Reliance Communications, coming out after attending a meeting convened by the Department of Telecommunications, in the Capital on Wednesday - Ramesh Sharma

Our Bureau

New Delhi, Nov. 21 The reconciliatory meeting between the Department of Telecom and the telecom companies on Wednesday turned out to be a damp squib, with the Government failing to thrash out a consensus on allocating spectrum. The importance of the DoT-initiated meeting dropped a notch lower as key players including Mr Kumar Mangalam Birla, Chairman, Idea Cellular, Mr Anand Krishnan, Chairman, Maxis Group, and Mr Arun Sarin, Chairman, Vodafone, stayed away from the discussions. They sent their company executives instead.

Those who attended the meeting stuck to their known stance on spectrum allocation. With DoT not coming out with any proposal to resolve the row, the meeting ended up being yet another ground for the operators to take shots at each other.

Individual meetings

With the operators in no mood to soften their position, DoT met each of the operators individually later in the day in a bid to thrash out a resolution. “We had very preliminary discussions and the Government did not make any concrete proposals,” Mr Sanjeev Aga, CEO, Idea Cellular, told reporters after the meeting.

Mr Sunil Mittal, Chairman, Bharti Group, and Mr Anil Ambani, Chairman, Reliance Communications, were among those who attended the meeting. None of the companies which had recently applied for new licences was invited for the discussions.

DoT officials told Business Line that the meeting was called only to hear out the various views on spectrum allocation and pricing and the Government may work out a solution based on the presentations made by the operators. They said that there could be more such meetings.