Former bureaucrat raises concerns over Starlink's India entry, writes to DoT

Hyderabad: With American billionaire Elon Musk's Starlink is set to launch satellite internet services in India in collaboration with Jio and Airtel, former Government of India Secretary EAS Sarma has raised concerns about this development, demanding that the Department of Telecom (DoT) review its decision to permit StarLink to appropriate satellite spectrum.

Sarma argued that satellite spectrum should be allocated exclusively for strategic uses, such as defense services and ISRO operations. He characterised the collaboration between Jio, Airtel, and Starlink as forming a cartel that would dominate satellite spectrum use at the expense of millions of Indian telecom customers.

According to Sarma, this arrangement violates the Supreme Court's directions issued in the 2G spectrum case. He has written to DoT Secretary Neeraj Mittal requesting a review of the decision to allocate satellite spectrum to Starlink.

“In view of the latest reports about the US threatening to "shut off" Starlink in Ukraine, unless Ukraine allows a lion's share in its mineral resources in favour of the US, your Department should tighten safeguards against Starlink. In my earlier correspondence with your Department I had proposed that satellite spectrum be reserved for defence and other strategic uses in India. I am surprised that DOT should go out of the way to accommodate Elon Musk's StarLink by allotting it strategic satellite spectrum, in outright violation of the Supreme Court's stipulation that it should be allotted only through a transparent auction process,” former senior bureaucrat Sarma wrote in the letter to Mittal.

He added, moreover, Starlink is known to work in close collaboration with the US defence services and it will gain an undue strategic advantage in the Indian skies, if India allots satellite spectrum to it.

He said that two domestic telecom operators, Jio and Airtel, in the past had appropriated domestic 5G spectrum without any competition.

“I understand that Starlink has demanded that DOT should relax some security clauses in the license being given to it for satellite spectrum use. If it is so, it is detrimental to the national interest. If DOT allows such a regressive cartelisation to materialise, I am afraid that it is wading into a scam far worse and more egregious than the 2G spectrum scam of the earlier UPA days. It is unfortunate that the DOT, perhaps fully supported by the political leadership at the Centre, should allow a cartel of domestic and overseas telecom operators to appropriate highly strategic satellite spectrum, permitting them to compromise the interests of millions of mobile and broadband users in the country."