Finance Minister P Chidambaram will find an unlikely ally in the Left, if he does not want extra spectrum given free of cost to unified telecom licence holders.
The Left believe that a scarce natural commodity such as spectrum cannot be given for free.
"Customers of next-generation mobile services are not starving. Telecom companies can afford to charge them," a source in the Communist Party of India (Marxist) said.
The Left's other argument is that since the government is eyeing revenues for channelling them to the social sector through the finance ministry, it can use the money from the sale of spectrum for that purpose.
"Instead of disinvesting profit-making PSUs such as Bhel for generating revenues, the government can decide not to give spectrum for free to telecom operators," CPI (M) MP Dipankar Mukherjee said.
The Left is also likely to oppose the idea of auctioning spectrum. "Auctioning of spectrum only leads to a marking up of prices, that never comes through," a Left expert on telecom said.
The Left will propose that extra spectrum be charged a "reasonable" fee in the form of a one-time payment and then a recurring fee. However, the Left was yet to discuss what this "reasonable" fee might be or how the recurring fee would be set, party sources said.
Talking to Business Standard a few days ago, Telecom Regulatory Authority of India chief Pradip Baijal had said charging telecom operators for extra spectrum would lead to a slump in investment for the development of basic services by service providers.
However, the Left feels that this argument is not valid as once next generation, or 3G services are operational, not charging for extra spectrum will amount to subsiding the 3G consumer at the cost of the bulk consumer.
"When the government is not ready to give power for free, how can they consider giving free spectrum?" a source in the CPI (M) said.
Trai, while recommending the spectrum policy, had asked for extra spectrum to be given free to all unified licence holders.
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