Lobbyist ka jalwa

RETROFIT

Curiousity killed the cat

Delhi's seamy underbelly always has a rumour or two doing the rounds.If it is not about politicians, then it is about the vast army offixers who inhabit the corridors of power. For the last month or so,the grapevine has been buzzing with news of the two coming together todefraud the exchequer. Throw in the odd retired bureaucrat andmalleable and ductile media and you have a potent fix or combine,whatever you want to call it. So, what is new, you might ask? Afterall, this is the norm in saadi dilli. But this time, there is onesmall twist. Sections of media are reporting this unholy nexus. It allbegan with a top corridors of power gossipy website www.powerbuzz.inreporting that the, "CBI is currently investigating the role of thecountry’s number one lobbyist in the award of a Unified AccessServices (UAS) telecom license to Unitech in 2007-08. It may berecalled that UAS (Unified Access Services) licenses were floated inearly 2007 by the Ministry of Telecommunication and immediately cameunder a cloud of controversy for alleged financial muddling. The CBItook over the investigation after a criminal case was registered underthe Prevention of Corruption Act. It soughtinformation from the Directorate General of Income Tax about certainmiddlemen and companies that were actively involved in the criminalconspiracy.
"The lobbyist’s phones were placed under surveillance by the FinanceMinistry and Home Ministry for a 180-day period during which someintercepted calls point to the deep nexus between key officials of theTelecom Ministry, some telecom operators and the lobbyist.Some intercepts also indicated that the lobbyist uses media toinfluence Government decision-making. According to sources, thelobbyist set up a lobbying company a year ago with three senior“pen-drive” bureaucrats of the Telecom Ministry, and whose recentactivities in Africa too are under investigation by intelligenceagencies. The intercepted phone calls reveal conversations relating toinfluencing the appointment of ministers and officials. Preliminaryinvestigations hint that the same group had a role in the award oftelecom licenses. The Cabinet Secretariat is believed to be personallymonitoring the status of these investigations."
One took this nugget of information with a bucket full of salt. Afterall what credibility does a gossipy website have, you could aver? Somewould say it is nothing more than gossipy trash. But on Mondaymorning, Mail Today in its popular Raisina tattle column had this toreport: "A high profile lobbyist, who has accounts, which are the envyof those in the trade, is believed to be facing the ire of the CentralBureau of Investigation. The agency is said to be in possession ofsome tapes of conversation between the lobbyist and several decisionmakers on the telecom ministry's Unified Access Services." Whoa, nowthis was a whole new dimension being added to 'trashy' gossip. It wasbeing given legitimacy because Mail Today would not have written thiswithout some element of due diligence. And mind you, a lot of whatMail Today has reported also appeared on powerbuzz.in and I am certainthat the two are unrelated. The bare bones of the gossip in fact arealmost identical. Which leads you to think that something serious isafoot. Or as Sherlock Holmes would say - the game is afoot!
But, slow down, there is more from Mail Today which went on to write,"UAS licences were floated in 2007 but later came under scrutiny forfinancial muddles." I thought to myself ...wait a minute; didn't theCBI raid the Department of Telecom last October in an unprecedentedmove. I found this story dated October 23 in the Times of Indiaarchives - "In an unprecedented move, the CBI on Thursday raided theoffices of the Department of Telecom (DoT), alleging criminalconspiracy between DoT officials and private firms in the allotment of2G spectrum. TOI was the first to report the unusual twists and turnsin DoT's decision-making process in the matter, and closely followedthe sequence of events from July 2007 -- when the rush for new telecomlicences began -- to January 2008, when spectrum was allocated to thenew entrants -- right up till November 2008, as the controversysnowballed."
But back to Mail Today for a moment - "The conversations reportedlyhave important pointers on how some new telecom holders acquiredlicences. The CBI took over the investigation after a criminal casewas registered under the Prevention of Corruption Act. It is allegedthat surveillance of telephonic conversations during the 180 dayperiod unravelled the nexus between key ministry officials, sometelecom operators and the lobbyist. It seems interested groups arehyperactive in telecom, and the lobbyist is caught in the crossfire."Which begs the question - who is this all powerful lobbyist who canmanage the environment so effectively and efficiently? Delhi's powerpavements abound with lobyists, fixers and powerbrokers and your guessis as good as mine on who this specific individual is?
If you are wondering why I am rewinding and fast forwarding soquickly, then to understand the dynamics of this scam, we need torevisit last October's ToI story for it provides an all encompassingperspective on the DoT raid. Here goes, "CBI officials said a caseunder the Prevention of Corruption Act had been registered againstunidentified DoT officials and "private persons" before the raids werecarried out in the Wireless Planning Cell (WPC) and in the office ofthe Deputy Director General (Access Services) at Sanchar Bhawan.According to the agency, all records pertaining to the allocation ofspectrum to new entrants in January 2008 are being examined toascertain whether or not there was any irregularity in the process. Itis learnt that AK Srivastav, DDG Access Services 1; Ashok Chandra,Wireless Advisor and P K Mittal, DDG Access Services Cell 11, thesenior officers in charge of these divisions, were taken to CBIheadquarters for questioning. The CBI raid started at 10am andfinished at around 6pm.
"The Central Vigilance Commission (CVC) had earlier asked CBI to probealleged irregularities in the award of Unified Excess ServicesLicenses to private companies and the resultant loss of Rs 22,000crore to the government. "As per information received, there wascriminal conspiracy between certain officials of DoT and private firmsin order to award licences to these companies by putting a cap on thenumber of applicants against recommendations of the Telecom RegulatoryAuthority of India (TRAI) and by awarding licences to privatecompanies on first-come-first-serve basis on the rates of 2001 withoutany competitive bidding," said a senior CBI official.
"The CVC had asked CBI to investigate the identities of allbeneficiaries in two companies that had bought stakes in Swan Telecomand Unitech Wireless Services. The two licencees had sold their stakeeven before they rolled out services for which they had been awardedlicences. Unitech and Swan sold their equity to Telenor and Etisalat,respectively, at roughly Rs 9,000 to Rs 10,000 crore each -- or six toeight times the price at which they had received spectrum from thegovernment. Sources said though there was no quantification done onwhat was the loss to the government on this account, a rough estimatebased on what these telecom companies earned by offloading their stakecould be anywhere between Rs 20,000 crore and Rs 22,000 crore.
"However, industry watchers claim that the extent of the loss to theexchequer could be as high as Rs 50,000 crore. They point out that DoTgave away 2G spectrum to 120 licencees at roughly Rs 9,000 crore whenthe market value was probably closer to Rs 60,000 crore. DoT chose tofollow a first-come-first-served (FCFS) process to handpick companiesthough it could easily have chosen a global auction for 2G spectrum,as has now been prescribed for 3G. The refusal to hold auctions whendemand for spectrum far outweighed its supply marked a departure fromthe policy of auctioning 2G spectrum till 2001.
"Telecom minister A Raja had argued that he merely followed TRAI'srecommendations. However, TRAI vehemently denied making any suchrecommendations. Former TRAI chairman N Misra had clarified on manyoccasions, including in a letter to DoT, that his recommendationsshould be read in their totality. He had accused the government ofcherry picking portions of TRAI's recommendations rather thanfollowing them as a whole. All these developments were reported inTOI. The previous DoT secretary, D S Mathur, was asked to sign the newlicences in 2007, but refused to do so till he retired in December2007. Once he was replaced, 120 licences were subsequently awarded inJanuary 2008.
"When criticised by the media and the opposition, Raja said hispredecessors, Dayanadhi Maran and Arun Shourie, had followed the sameFCFS policy. The big difference, however, was that there was no queuefor spectrum during Shourie and Maran's tenure. At the time that Rajachose to give away spectrum to a select 120 companies, there werealready 575 applications waiting and more could have followed. Rajawas also accused of abruptly announcing a cutoff date and favoringonly those companies that had come in on or before September 25, 2007,even though the government had officially asked for applications tillOctober 1, 2007.The manner in which spectrum was allocated to companies within theFCFS norm also came under attack as there was no clarity whetherwinners were being selected based on date of application or date oflicence fee payment."
Curious, no? Wonder which cat died.

(exchange4media)