<p>The Indian government has decided that spectrum (radio waves) would hereafter be sold only through auction and not on first-come-first-serve basis, Minister of State for Communications and Information Technology Sachin Pilot said here Monday.<br /><br /></p>.<p>“We are going to sell spectrum only through auction and not on first-come-first-serve basis anymore. There will be an open bidding to get fair price for spectrum, be it terrestrial or space-based,” Pilot told IANS on the margins of a conference here.<br /><br />Declining to comment on the raging controversy over the indictment of the country’s four senior space scientists by the high-level team over their questionable role in the Antrix-Devas spectrum deal, Pilot said the government has evolved a fair-market determinant mechanism for auctioning spectrum (radio waves) hereafter.<br /><br />“There will be an open bidding for national assets. Be it spectrum or licences to cellular operators. There is a separate mechanism for each of them though no decision has been taken yet on auctioning of the S-band spectrum," Pilot said after inaugurating the seventh edition of the Indian Semiconductors Association (ISA) summit.<br /><br />A five-member high-level team headed by former Chief Vigilance Commissioner (CVC) Prityush Sinha held former chairman of the state-run Indian Space Research Organisation (ISRO) G. Madhavan Nair and three other scientists responsible for irregularities in the $300-million contract the space agency’s commercial arm Antrix Corporation signed with Devas Multimedia Services in January 2005.<br /><br />The other space scientists are former scientific secretary A. Bhaskarnarayana, ISRO’s former satellite centre director K.N. Shankara and former Antrix Corporation executive director K.R. Sridharamurthi.<br /><br />The government scrapped the Antrix-Devas deal in February 2011 after the Comptroller and Auditor General (CAG) estimated a revenue loss of Rs.2 lakh crore (Rs.2 trillion) to the exchequer if the operator (Devas) was allowed to use the allotted 70 MHz of the scarce S-band spectrum for digital services using ISRO’s transponders from its proposed GSAT-6 and GSAT-6A satellites. <br /><br />The Prime Minister, who is also in-charge of the Department of Space, had set up the Sinha panel May 31, 2011, to study the report of the two-member high-powered committee headed by former cabinet secretary B.K. Chaturvedi and Space Commission member Roddam Narasimha and fix responsibility for the alleged violation of norms in the spectrum deal. <br /><br />ISRO late Saturday uploaded on its website the Chaturvedi report in full, while partially releasing only the conclusions and recommendations of the Sinha team report.<br /><br />On the basis of the Sinha team’s recommendations, the government Jan 13 also debarred the four tainted scientists from holding any official post.</p>
<p>The Indian government has decided that spectrum (radio waves) would hereafter be sold only through auction and not on first-come-first-serve basis, Minister of State for Communications and Information Technology Sachin Pilot said here Monday.<br /><br /></p>.<p>“We are going to sell spectrum only through auction and not on first-come-first-serve basis anymore. There will be an open bidding to get fair price for spectrum, be it terrestrial or space-based,” Pilot told IANS on the margins of a conference here.<br /><br />Declining to comment on the raging controversy over the indictment of the country’s four senior space scientists by the high-level team over their questionable role in the Antrix-Devas spectrum deal, Pilot said the government has evolved a fair-market determinant mechanism for auctioning spectrum (radio waves) hereafter.<br /><br />“There will be an open bidding for national assets. Be it spectrum or licences to cellular operators. There is a separate mechanism for each of them though no decision has been taken yet on auctioning of the S-band spectrum," Pilot said after inaugurating the seventh edition of the Indian Semiconductors Association (ISA) summit.<br /><br />A five-member high-level team headed by former Chief Vigilance Commissioner (CVC) Prityush Sinha held former chairman of the state-run Indian Space Research Organisation (ISRO) G. Madhavan Nair and three other scientists responsible for irregularities in the $300-million contract the space agency’s commercial arm Antrix Corporation signed with Devas Multimedia Services in January 2005.<br /><br />The other space scientists are former scientific secretary A. Bhaskarnarayana, ISRO’s former satellite centre director K.N. Shankara and former Antrix Corporation executive director K.R. Sridharamurthi.<br /><br />The government scrapped the Antrix-Devas deal in February 2011 after the Comptroller and Auditor General (CAG) estimated a revenue loss of Rs.2 lakh crore (Rs.2 trillion) to the exchequer if the operator (Devas) was allowed to use the allotted 70 MHz of the scarce S-band spectrum for digital services using ISRO’s transponders from its proposed GSAT-6 and GSAT-6A satellites. <br /><br />The Prime Minister, who is also in-charge of the Department of Space, had set up the Sinha panel May 31, 2011, to study the report of the two-member high-powered committee headed by former cabinet secretary B.K. Chaturvedi and Space Commission member Roddam Narasimha and fix responsibility for the alleged violation of norms in the spectrum deal. <br /><br />ISRO late Saturday uploaded on its website the Chaturvedi report in full, while partially releasing only the conclusions and recommendations of the Sinha team report.<br /><br />On the basis of the Sinha team’s recommendations, the government Jan 13 also debarred the four tainted scientists from holding any official post.</p>