Telecom meet brings some consensus

New Delhi: The telecom committee constituted by the Communications Minister, Mr Arun Shourie, to solve the contentious issues between the cellular and limited mobility operators, has decided to seek an adjournment of the cases that are coming up for hearing by the Telecom Dispute Settlement Appellate Tribunal (TDSAT) on Monday.

Briefing the media after the second round of meeting held today, the Telecom Secretary, Mr Vinod Vaish, noted that while "some" consensus has been reached on a few issues, the committee would be meeting again on March 3 to deliberate further.

Mr Shourie had set a deadline of March 1, for the committee to finalise its report, however, it has had to be postponed by two days because of pending assignments of a few members, he said.

While declining to state whether there will be more meetings scheduled after March 3, Mr Vaish noted that it might take a little more time because all the members have agreed that long-term solutions need to be arrived at if the telecom sector has to move forward.

The committee has on its agenda three main items, which include the provision of "roaming" by limited mobility operators, restricting the service to the short distance charging area (SDCA) and provisions for protecting the smaller operators.

The two-hour meeting was attended by Mr Mukesh Ambani, CMD, Reliance, Mr Rajan Mittal, JMD, Bharti, Mr S. Ramakrishnan, MD, Tata Teleservices, Mr Ashim Ghosh, CEO, Hutch, Mr Rajeev Chandrasekhar, Chairman, BPL Mobile, and Mr Prithipal Singh, CMD, BSNL.