Yashwant Sinha, former Union Minister and a member of the Joint Parliamentary Committee (JPC) to probe the telecom policy from 1998 to 2009, has volunteered to depose before the committee on aspects that influenced the Vajpayee government's decision to shift from the fixed licence scheme to the revenue-sharing regime in 1999.
His offer came on Thursday as the JPC resumed its sitting.
Mr. Sinha headed the Group of Ministers (GOM) that went into various issues of the telecom policy shift.
There are indications that Jaswant Singh, another Minister of the Vajpayee Government and JPC member, is also inclined to depose before the committee if the members so desired.
Mr. Singh, who had a stint as Deputy Chairman of the Planning Commission during the NDA government, briefed the committee members about the salient features of the telecom policy as outlined in the Tenth Five Year Plan.
JPC Chairman P.C. Chacko told journalists that increasing tele-density rather than revenue generation was the centre point of the telecom policy in the Tenth Five Year plan.
Mr. Sinha's offer came a day after the JPC directed the Secretary to the Department of Telecom Affairs to “quantify losses” the government incurred on account of the shift to the revenue-sharing regime. In its report for 2000, the Comptroller and Auditor-General said that as a result of the 1999 policy, the exchequer suffered a huge loss. However, the loss was not quantified.
Mr. Chacko said the committee had asked the government to submit all files, documents and communications which formed the basis of the decision on the telecom policy from 1998 to 2009. These included the spectrum released by the Defence Ministry for commercial purposes and the rationale behind it.
The committee decided to summon CAG Vinod Rai on May 30 to ascertain the basis on which his office concluded that the government had incurred a “presumptive loss” of Rs. 1.76 lakh crore due to the irregularities in the 2G spectrum allocation. It would hear from Central Bureau of Investigation Director Amar Pratap Singh on June 7 and officials of the Union Finance Ministry on June 8.
From June 29, the committee intends to call witnesses. “We are in the process of drawing up a list of witnesses and should be ready with the names in the next few days,” Mr. Chacko said.
