Throwing the baby with bath water?
From the time allegations of misappropriation during the bidding for allocation of 2G spectrum surfaced, till Telecom Minister A Raja’s ouster, high drama charged both politics in Delhi and Tamil Nadu. Now that the apex court has quashed all 122 spectrum licenses granted after January 2008, the Opposition and the Janata Party leader Subramanian Swamy is jumping in glee, even hinting that Home Minister P Chidambaram is entrenched in the scam.
The Janata Party chief, who is the petitioner in the 2G case, has alleged that Chidambaram, the then Finance Minister, could have prevented jailed former Telecom Minister A Raja from giving away spectrum at throwaway prices to select companies, but chose not to do so. This however does not imply complicity in the scam. Not every transaction and contract within the government can be under the vigilant eye of a senior minister, especially when another Cabinet Minister is in charge of a portfolio.
In this mood of UPA-bashing, nobody seems to be talking about the advantages of the so-called sale of license at low (not throw away!) prices. It is because of the low cost in licensing fees that the end users benefited. Remember the days when you had to pay three rupees of your hard earned money, equivalent to at least Rs.15 of today, for making a two seconds call. Currently the rates are well affordable for the common man. For instance, one of the operators named in the scam has a scheme which offers endless talk time merely for Rs 100 a month. That the numbers of mobile users have multiplied manifold, that even the poor are owners of mobile in a remotest parts of the country, goes to show the benefit accrued. Mobile subscriber base had shot up to 350 million in 2008 from 4 million in 2001 following the issue of licenses for 2 G. The rich may of course have not relished that their private preserve has been invaded by the lowly! But think of the poor farmer in internal villages being able to find the price in the city market and sell his produce at prices fair to him and the customer, by-passing the blood-sucking middlemen! Much credit for the improvement in the life of genuine farmers should go to the affordability of mobile telecom connectivity via the 2G revolution.
This is not to condone any misdemeanor. Any loss incurred to the Government ought to be made good. And there appears to be some hanky-panky involved in the award of licenses. Procedural irregularities and manipulations by those in authority should be visited by the most appropriate punishments, but, in the process, projecting a well defined collective policy decision not to auction the Spectrum, as a scam, when a new decision has since been made to auction is not sound logic. Let there be auctions and let the now developed market arrive at what is the right price for the current time. It cannot be historically projected backwards. The auction prices of 3G spectrum were also no measure to test the theoretical losses in the case of the 2G spectrum allocation. You don’t pay the same price for a basket of Afonso Mangoes and for Xavier Mangoes! You can thank our politician friends for their great gift, if we end up paying Rs 15 per minute for a ‘trunk mobile’ call or two hundred rupees for an ISD call!.
Now that Subramanian Swamy, the petitioner in the 2G case in the Supreme Court has seen some sort of endorsement of his claims by the apex court, he is seeking to paint Chidambaram as a beneficiary in the scam. The truth will be revealed in its own course of time.
=======
people’s edit
The answer is blowing
in the wind
Joaquim D’Souza, Fatorda
It is now over two weeks since North Goa MP Shripad Naik asked a simple question and has not yet received an answer, because my friend the answer is blowing in the wind in sight of all to see. But like an embarrassing or inconvenient family secret, it is something which besides the proverbial ostrich the Sangh Parivar will also opt not to see. Porvorim is a sure seat for Shripad Naik , but will ultimately involve him relinquishing a precious MP seat to be put up with the vagaries of the proletariat ,and the risk involved therein . But methinks there is a more weighty reason. Illegal mining, the perceived match fixing called RP 2021 on behalf or at the behest of big outstation builders, the flip-flops on the issue of the MoI, the CRZ-affected traditional fishermen and farmers , which in hindsight are seen as ‘chapter game plan’ , which the current government has been playing, have presented so many issues of discontent and anger among the local Goans which could prove to be a cakewalk to an alternate political dispensation, which could be the BJP. The Anna Hazare movement has already created an awareness of the cancer of corruption, which is largely associated with the Congress, given the disclosures of such a large number of scams in Goa. So much so that Robinhoods are now being spelled as the Robbing Coots. This has resulted in questions being asked and divergent aspirations even among the ghettos of Goa. At Margao ‘Monte’ there could be a hitherto unthinkable split of vote banks, which is a pointer that the ‘Anna Effect’ has been playing on the minds of the migrants who can associate with him rather than with the issues that the local Goans are disturbed by. So overall there is a widespread wave of angst among the voters. The majority of voters are of the bahujan samaj. Mr Shripad Naik keeps on asking why a Bahujan Samaj person is being denied the Porvorim seat ticket and not being projected as the Chief Ministerial candidate of the BJP. This is a moot question. Further an MP could be eligible for the post and the BJP need not sacrifice an MP post. However as part of a smart-alec stratagem, obvious to Goans, a sure BJP seat is being pushed into the lap of the MGP, the ally-in -waiting.
On his part, Parrikar has made belated conciliatory statements regretting certain actions when he was Chief Minister Apparently the BJP has realized that the principle of exclusion which characterized Parrikar’s tenure as CM have alienated the minorities and the cosmopolitan among the majority. The BJP has consistently lost out since then at the hustings, on this issue. They have not understood that wounds take time to heal and that there is no time until the day of reckoning.
