Since the implementation of the policies of Globallisation and Liberalisation,the telecom sector has become a gold mine for the big business houses.They have successfully used various telecom ministers to circumvent the rules for their personal gains. It started with Shuk Ram in 1995 when the National Telecom Policy was introduced. It was this policy which envisaged the participation of private operators in providing telecom serviices. Ever since then,,the nexus between big buisness houses and the mnisters is continuing and the public money is beng looted. Shuk Ram himself amassed huge wealth and became notorious in corrupton.
When Jagmohan became the telecom miniter,he fixed deadline for the private telecom operators to clear their license fee arrears. However, the private operators did not clear their license fee dues. What happened was Jagmohan was unceremoniously shunted out from the telecom ministry by the then Priime Minister, A..B.. Vajpayee.This highlighted the enormous clout that the big business houses have in the government.
When Pramod Mahajan was the telecom minister, he openly patronized the Relliance Communications. It was this Relliance Communicatiions which cheated BSNL in ADC.It manipulated incoming international calls as local calls and thereby cheated BSNL of hundreds of crores of rupees.Despiite this, Relliance Communications was in the good books of Pramod Mahajan.Finally a Public Interest Litigation was filed against Pramod Mahajan in the Supreme Court,alleging that he got financial benefits from Relliance,for circumventing rules in favour of the latter.
Arun Shourie was also accused of favouring private telecom companies when he was the telecom minister during 2003-04. The latest to lose his jobon corruption charges is A. Raja.Off course,the volume of money involved in the 2G spectrum scam is very huge. It is the biggest scam that has ever taken place in independent India and is rightly called as the mother of all scams.
It can be seen that ever since the implementation of the economic reforms,one affter another many scams have taken place in the telecom sector. Big business houses have loted huge amounts, in collusion with the ministers. However, none has so far been punished for these corruptions. At least in the 2G scam we hope that the cullprits will be brought to the books..
[Editorial – Telemessage, December]