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— Bijoy Ghosh

Innovation centre: Mr A. Raja, Union Minister of Communications and Information Technology, with Mr M. Madhavan Nambiar, Special Secretary, Dept of Information Technology, at the foundation stone laying function of C-DAC’s ‘Innovation Centre’ at Anna University, in Chennai on Monday.

Our Bureau

Chennai, May 12 The Union Communications and IT Minister, Mr A. Raja, is to meet the Prime Minister, Dr Manmohan Singh, this week to have more clarity on allowing more foreign telecom players on third generation (3G) spectrum auction or restrict the auction to existed players.

The Minister declined to give more details on what his recommendations will be on the issue. “Even if participation of more foreign players is restricted, it would be only a semi-global auction since as per the current regulations any foreign player can take 75 per cent stake in an Indian telecom firm,” he told reporters after laying the foundation stone for the Centre for Development of Advanced Computing (C-DAC) new Innovation Centre inside the Anna University.

The Telecom Regulatory Authority of India (TRAI) had said that Government should restrict spectrum auction for 3G mobile services to existing players only. TRAI’s suggestion comes after the Department of Telecom sought its views on whether or not to allow foreign and new players to bid for the spectrum by issuing a 3G specific licence.

TRAI in its recommendations said, “The existing licensees due to their available infrastructure are in a better position to deliver 3G services efficiently, quickly and at low incremental cost in the Indian price sensitive market.”

The innovation centre at Anna University will be constructed at a cost Rs 15 crore as grant-in-aid to C-DAC from the IT ministry. The new facility will be spread over 35,000 sq ft and seat around 200 engineers. Both C-DAC and Anna University will jointly do research and development in various areas, including free and open source software, Mr Raja said.

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