DoT gets 300 applications for telecom licences

Mumbai: The government has received about 300 applications from 30 companies for starting telecom services, communications and IT minister A. Raja said.

Raja said his ministry and the defence ministry would resolve differences over release of additional spectrum by November.

Raja said he wants to get a view from existing operators before finalising guidelines for scrutinising new applications. Raja will meet telecom operators in the capital today to discuss the issue.

"Since the committee is going to scrutinize all these issues, before the scrutiny I told my officers that we should give a fair hearing to the operators since they''re already in the ground. They should not be aggrieved by the order going to be passed by us," CNBC quoted him as saying.

The telecom minister and top DoT officials will meet all the operators. It''s an important meeting because the GSM lobby for long has now been saying that there should be a cap on the number of service providers in a particular circle and they, to some extent, will be vindicated by what''s been gong on over the last couple of weeks, when there have been a flurry of applications for the telecom licences.

The meeting is supposed to touch upon issues of spectrum allocation and spectrum pricing. The industry leaders will be given a free hand, they''ll be allowed to express their opinions on wide ranging issues. But the focus of course, will be the new applicants.