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CPI-M sees 500 billion rupee scam in new telecom policy

Onkar Singh in New Delhi

The Communist Party of India (Marxist) today alleged that the Bharatiya Janata Party-led coalition government at the Centre was involved in a Rs 500 billion telecommunication scam.

"It is the scam of the millennium in which people from the prime minister's office are directly involved," said politburo member Sitaram Yechuri at a press conference in New Delhi.

To support his claim, Yechuri released some documents, including a letter written by CPI-M politician Somnath Chatterjee in his capacity as chairman of the Standing Committee on Telecommunication, to the President; the opinion of the Attorney-General of India on the New Telecom Policy, 1999; and a Cabinet note of the meeting dated July 6 where the Department of Telecommunication proposed migration of the existing licensees of cellular (metros and telecom circles) and basic telecom services to New Telecom Policy 1999 regime.

Yechuri claimed that the Telecommunication Regulatory Authority of India was so upset with the government's decision that it had decided to move court. "I am told the TRAI has moved the Delhi high court to prevent the BJP government from implementing the new policy."

He said the government had been told repeatedly that being a caretaker it had no power to take any policy decisions. "But our pleas have been ignored. Instead they have tried to justify the concessions given to cellular phone companies saying that Somnath Chatterjee himself had recommended such a move. We are releasing Somnath's letter for your attention," said Yechuri.

According to Yechuri, the National Telecom Policy 1999 was never placed in Parliament nor was any attempt made to list it in the business of either of the two Houses, though there was time available between the framing of the policy and the dissolution of the Lok Sabha.

He said if the new policy is implemented, the nation would lose Rs 250 billion in basic telecom services, Rs 150 billion in the metro section (cellular), and Rs 80 billion in the non-metro (cellular) section.

"For any change in the Finance Bill after it is passed, it has to be placed before the Lok Sabha. Here the BJP government is trying to circumvent the established procedure and have a presidential order issued to please the major players in the cellular phone field," he added.

Yechuri alleged that while the cellular operators enjoyed the first three years of their contract with the government and paid Rs 130 crore each as fee for operating in the metropolitan cities, when it came to sharing profits in the fourth year they began crying foul.

"It's a strange situation. You enjoy when it suits you and you complain when it doesn't. Since former minister for telecommunication Jagmohan did not agree with the cellular operators, he was moved out and the prime minister became the minister of communication himself. Even the opinion given by the Attorney General of India in January 1999 was ignored and he was forced to give a revised opinion in May 1999," he said.

Yechuri said his party's general secretary, Harkishen Singh Surjeet, in a letter dated July 27, 1999, to the Election Commission had pointed out "the absolutely irregular manner in which the government" was moving over fixed licence fee-based private telecom operators to a new revenue-sharing arrangement.

In his letter dated July 21, 1999, to the President, Chatterjee had said he was writing to Narayanan because the BJP government was attempting to draw conclusions on the basis of a letter he had written to the prime minister on May 12, 1999, on the telecom controversy.

"At the very outset, I want to make it clear that I am totally opposed to the government, which has lost its majority on the floor of the House, taking any policy decision. This is exactly what the government is attempting on the telecom issue. I oppose this unequivocally. It is all the more reprehensible that the prime minister and the government are trying to do so by citing my letter to justify their action," Chatterjee wrote.

Yechuri said the CPI-M hopes to nail the lies spread by the BJP government on the telecom issue by exposing it. "We are waiting for the result of the TRAI petition. If need be we will also move the courts," he added.

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