The 2G spectrum scam refuses to die down. More operators, government and other stakeholders try to contain it, more it spreads. Now RCOM is up in arms against government & old operators and has accused that old operators , in connivance with bureaucrats, duped the government to the tune of Rs 1 lakh crore fraudulently by misrepresenting and concealing the material facts . This revenue loss occurred mainly due to two policy decisions that old operators -Bharti, Vodafone and Idea reportedly got tweaked in their favour.
These operators were allotted 2 G spectrum initially for a period of 10 years but government extended the tenure of license to 20 years without any corresponding increase in license fee. Subsequently , these operators sold their stake to foreign companies and made huge profit running into thousands of crores. Interestingly RCOM has used the same CAG report to prove its point which has been squarely castigated by company as waste paper. This caused government a loss of more than Rs 50,000 crore alone.
Moreover the second modus operandi adopted by old operators to dupe the government was illegal hoarding of spectrum in excess of 6.2Mhz. The amount of loss attributed to hoarding also runs into more than Rs 50,000 crores.
With rivals spilling beans against each other and Supreme Court determined to go to the root of spectrum scam , it seems more such revelations would come. It is unfortunate that spineless and corrupt bureaucracy in collusion with political masters is holding the Indian democracy at ransom with common man as mute spectator. Will another Gandhi and Jai Prakash emerge from masses to stop this loot and bring back nation on the path of progress and prosperity encompassing all sections of society particularly people at the bottom of pyramid ? Only time will tell. But going by the wave of change sweeping across the world , one thing is certain that common man, as has been evidenced in Egypt, will not tolerate such act on the part of elites in the society any further. People in power must mend their ways so that fruit of development finally reaches to the people at the bottom of pyramid and not usurped by handful elites in India..
