'Government's Supreme Court plea: No change to the 2012 satellite broadband spectrum auction judgement'
livemint.comnew telecom law, only a very limited and narrowly defined cases including spectrum for walkie-talkie for police organizations, radar for weather forecasting, radar and communication for ships, communication for space and satellite applications, communication and radar for Army, Air Force and Navy and PSU like BSNL will be given on administrative basis. Of the total allocations, these amount to minuscule (amounts)," the official added.
The plea for clarification comes years after the Supreme Court in 2012 said that competitive auctions will be route taken for distribution of natural resources owned by the public. A Presidential reference by the central government also followed the judgement.
The new telecom law enacted last year has cleared the way for allocation of satellite broadband spectrum without the need for auctioning it. Satellite spectrum in particular is crucial, since a number of large players have plans to launch satellite services in India.
Key among them are Bharti Group-backed Eutelsat OneWeb, Reliance’s Jio Satellite Communications, Elon Musk’s Starlink and Amazon’s Project Kuiper. Some including L&T, Tata Group, Nasscom, besides Bharti Group, Starlink and Amazon, have backed the non-auction route, while others including Reliance and Vodafone Idea have opposed direct allocation.Milestone Alert!
Livemint tops charts as the fastest growing news website in the world
