In for a rough ride

If one were to go by the first few months of A Raja's new stint as Communications and IT Minister, the telecom sector should brace for a rough ride. As soon as he took over the minister announced that he expects local tariffs to come down to 10 paise without explaining how operators, who pay a minimum of 25 paise to each other as termincation charge, will be able to bring down tariffs to such an extent. Then a week later after he took charge of the Ministry, Raja made a number of faux pas. Though he introduced the Minister of State Mr Gurdas Kamat as someone who needs to introduction, he managed to get the second name wrong. Then he adressed Sonia Gandhi as the ChairMAN of UPA. After hearing all the errors in his inaugural speech to the media, an industry executive (who had managed to sneek into the Minister's office) said "One just hopes that this time he limits the mistakes to his sundry speeches and not let it over flow to policy making." But that hope is probably just a hope. For Raja seems to be in no mood to relent when it comes to messing up telecom sector. He has alreay trashed the sweeping reforms proposed by the spectrum commitee headed by Subodh Kumar. Raja wants to stick to giving 2G spectrum away for free based on the subscriber based criteria - a system which is unique to India. Although the opinion of the TRAI has been sought in this regard, DoT sources say that it is a hog wash. Raja has already made up his mind to not auction 2G spectrum becuase it benefits him. Auction would take away his ministry's control over spectrum, which of course could mean not having enough funds to fight the next elections. On 3G and Wimax, Raja has repeatedly shifted the goal post. Initially he said that the auctions for 3G mobile services would take place in September. Now he says it wont happen before the end of the year. It is not as if other telecom ministers before him were all clean. But the difference is that the predecessors at least delivered some good to the country.