RCom's failure prompts Sibal to go after everyone

When Firstpost queried Union Communications Minister Kapil Sibal on whether he was aware of the fact that Reliance Communications had not switched on most of its rural mobile towers, he asked for time to find out.

Since Sibal’s justification for reducing the penalty on RCom for the switch-off last November was that the company had since restored services, Firstpost asked him whether he was sure these stations had been switched on. Firstpost backed it up with its own investigations at several sites in Rajasthan covered under the Universal Service Obligation Fund Agreement (USOF Agreement).

Sibal’s response has been to go after every telecom operator. Here’s what his office told Raman Kirpal of Firstpost:

Dear Ramanji

Please refer to earlier email dated 12th July, 2011 from Hon’ble MOC&IT in response to your e-mail Dated 12th July, 2011, regarding your follow-up story on USOF Agreement. After receiving your queries and valuable inputs, Hon’ble Minister had instructed Administrator, USOF, to collect entire data regarding delay in providing mobile services by ALL Universal Service Providers (USPs) as well as site commissioning by Infrastructure Providers (IPs), who had earlier participated in USOF Phase-I Scheme for Mobile Telephony in 2007-8.

On receipt of said report,it was observed by Hon’ble Minister that none of these Service Providers had been able to commission mobile BTSs in time and, therefore, it was considered by him as appropriate to set up a Committee under the Chairmanship of Secretary (Telecom), including Member (Technical), Member (Finance), Administrator (USOF), DDG (Licensing), DDG (Technical-USOF), DDG (Finance-USOF) and the Legal Advisor. The Committee would consider all aspects and suggest appropriate action that may be required to be taken in the facts and circumstances of the case. This exercise would be completed within a period of eight weeks. Thank you,

Warm regards,

(Ranjan Khanna)

PS to Hon’ble MOC&IT