New Delhi: General Secretary of the Samajwadi Party (SP), Amar Singh has raised a storm over the Rupees 51,000 telecom spectrum allocation scam.
Singh has alleged that he had been offered a huge sum of money to keep quiet over the entire issue.
Amar Singh and SP chief Mulayam Singh met the Prime Minister on Wednesday and officially informed the PM that telecom companies are using far more spectrum than has been allotted to them.
Singh also alleged that companies like Vodafone, Airtel and Idea are violating Telecom Regulatory Authority of India (TRAI) norms on spectrum ulitilisation.
Opposition parties including the Left and the BJP have alleged that there were irregularities in government's first come - first served procedure adopted in spectrum allocation.
Amar Singh told media that the telecom companies have made phenomenal profits, by the misuse of spectrum and that, a representative of a cartel offered him a huge sum to play down the controversy.
"Me and Mulayam Singh met the Prime Minister. The sole purpose of meeting him was to apprise him of the spectrum scam. This is a scam because they (the telecom companies) are using much more spectrum than what is allotted to them. Because of this additional misuse of spectrum, their economic growth has been phenomenal. A representative of the cartel wanted to pay an obscene amount of money for our silence to keep my mouth shut," said Amar Singh.
Meanwhile, the Delhi High Court has also sought a response from the Centre on a petition challenging its first come-first serve response procedure adopted in spectrum allocation. The HC has asked the government to file its response within three weeks and posted the matter to December 10 for hearing.
The PIL has challenged the Centre's policy of allocating 2G spectrum. 2G is a cell phone network protocol. The PIL alleges that the 2G spectrum allocating policy was not transparent, thus causing a loss of crores of rupees to the exchequer.
Comments
0 comment