TRAI recommends cancellation of 62 Mobile Licences

Irregular allocations of 2G licenses and spectrum in 2008 to some Indian operators may have cost the country up to Rupees 100,000 crores approximately, according to the CAG report, which was tabled in India's Parliament on recently. ------ mGovWorld Bureau

Telecommunications Regulatory Authority of India (TRAI) has recommended to the government that about 62 licenses for 2G services should be cancelled, as the companies involved met their service rollout obligations only partially or not at all in some service areas, according to media reports late Thursday.

TRAI recommendations to the Secretary DOT comes less than a week after India's Comptroller and Auditor General (CAG) said in a report that out of 122 licenses issued in 2008, 85 licenses were awarded to six new licensees who had not met their service rollout obligations.

The Indian joint ventures of Telenor and Etisalat were among the six named by the CAG.

The CAG audit found that though these six new operators obtained the initial 4.4MHz spectrum in 81 service areas from April 2008 to January 2009, none of them had rolled out their services by Dec. 31, 2009. License provisions required these operators to roll out services in 90 percent of metro service areas and 10 percent in district headquarters within 12 months of the date of award of licenses, CAG said.

The CAG report investigated an alleged scam in the allocation of 2G licenses by the Department of Telecommunications (DOT).

These licenses were issued at 2001 prices, and some of the licensees sold off stakes in their service companies to foreign investors at valuations far higher than the price they had paid for license and spectrum, CAG said. A. Raja, the country's communications and IT minister at the time, resigned on Sunday.