Bar lobbyists, says Chandrasekhar in letter to Sibal

Jumping on the recent controversy over corporate lobbyist Niira Radia's access to the powers-that-be, Rajya Sabha member and former telecom entrepreneur Rajeev Chandrasekhar has written to telecom minister Kapil Sibal on Wednesday saying his ministry should get rid of lobbyists.

Offering a seven-point set of ''solutions'' to make the sector more transparent, he slammed the ''free access'' for corporate houses and lobbyists to Sanchar Bhawan (the telecom ministry's headquarters), calling it ''unhealthy''.

Earlier this month, Chandrasekhar had initiated a spat with Tata Group chairman Ratan Tata, accusing him in an 'open letter' of influencing government decisions in favour of Tata Telecommunications. Given the widespread media coverage that Chandrashekhar's allegations received, the usually reticent and media-shy Tata was forced to rebut the charges in the public domain.

Now, in his missive to Sibal, Chandraskhar, who himself was president of the GSM lobby body COAI, has called for making procedures and processes more streamlined. He says there must be a level playing field for all telecom operators, and the ministry should welcome varied view points of consumer groups, citizens and the media.

He also asks for the Telecom Regulatory Authority of India (TRAI) to have more powers in matters involving financial and functional independence. He says in the letter, "The DoT has a long track record of colluding with private companies and therefore you will understand the suspicion and concern that the DoT may blandly accept the responses of the telecom companies to the show-cause notices."

Sibal's ministry has issued at least 85 show-cause notices to telecom companies in the wake of the 2G spectrum allocation 'scam', which according to the Comptroller and Auditor General has caused a notional loss of Rs1.76 lakh crore to the exchequer.