New Delhi, September 6
Stung by the new proposed criteria for spectrum allocation to existing players, private GSM operators today petitioned the government and termed telecom regulator TRAI's recommendations as flawed, based on incorrect assumptions and legally untenable.

In a detailed letter to Department of Telecom (DoT) Secretary D S Mathur, the Cellular Operators Association of India (COAI) said the regulator did not follow the correct procedure and acted in a non-transparent manner.

"Recommendations on spectrum allocation and pricing have been made by TRAI without following the due process as also mandate of transparency as required under the Act. These issues were not raised as a part of the consultative process nor were the inputs from various stakeholders shared transparently," COAI said in the letter.

The regulator had on August 29 suggested framing a new spectrum allocation criteria for mobile operators as part of its recommendations on review of licence terms for companies.

It had asked the government to enhance the present subscriber norms for spectrum allocation and also suggested raising the spectrum prices for GSM players.

COAI director general T.V. Ramachamdran said in the letter that the ad-hoc and enhanced subscriber linkage criteria that has been recommended was based on assumptions that were incorrect, technically flawed and impossible to achieve.

The industry group accused the regulator of adopting partisan approach, saying "such an exercise has been carried out selectively only for GSM-based services. Further, even looking at deployment of spectrum optimisation techniques, the recommendations have chosen to focus only on the GSM segment.

There is no separate analysis for CDMA services." GSM-based operators include Bharti Airtel, Vodafone-Essar and Idea Cellular among others, while CDMA field is dominated by two business groups — Anil Ambani's Reliance Communication and Tata Teleservices.

"It is now an admitted fact by all, that the present policy and licensing regime does not allow for cross- allotments of spectrum and a technology choice, once exercised, becomes the basis of all future allotments of spectrum," Ramachandran said.— PTI

New Delhi, September 6
Fertiliser minister Ram Vilas Paswan has termed as "unreasonable" the $4.33 per million British thermal unit price sought by Reliance Industries for the gas it plans to produce from KG block next year, saying the price of the fuel should be based on cost of production.

"The price should have some relationship with the cost of production with a reasonable profit to the contractor," he wrote to external affairs minister Pranab Mukherjee, who is heading an empowered group of ministers on gas pricing.

Paswan said RIL undertook limited bidding that was not "transparent" to arrive at the gas pricing formula. "The formula has been devised by the contractor himself, the basis of which is not very clear. First of all, the basis of this formula, its reasonableness etc will have to be looked into." Seeking firm commitment for supply of fuel for fertiliser plants, he said Reliance formula was unreasonable because the bidders were asked to quote a very small component of the overall formula and bidding was restricted to 10 selected parties. The formula contains both rupee and dollar component, making it susceptible to rupee-dollar exchange rate.

He, however, admitted that RIL gas price could help save Rs 3,000 crore in fertiliser subsidy when plans operating on costlier liquid feedstock switch to gas. But he sought firm commitment for supply of 38 million standard cubic metres per day of gas to existing units and their expansion as also to the eight closed plants and 16 mmmscmd for six new projects.

"The fertiliser industry should be given first priority over domestic gas," he said.

Paswan said the government needs to have a stated utilisation and pricing policy of gas before any decision on formula or basis on which the gas price is to be determined.

"Even if the decision on formula needs to be expedited, broad contours of the utilisation and pricing policy for gas needs to be laid down so that there is consistency in the decision making process," he wrote.

The minister also questioned the increase in capital expenditure from $2.47 billion to $8.8 billion for the KG-D6 block of RIL, saying the "whole basis of increase is questionable".

"The exact status of reserves need to be carefully ascertained and the increase in capex needs to be closely monitored to ensure that the interests of the government are completely protected and gas, which is the most critical natural resource of the country, is utilised in an optimal manner," he said. — PTI 

New Delhi, September 6
The government today said it has decided to put the proposal for merger of BSNL and MTNL on hold for some time, following a few complexities involved in the issue.

In a written reply to the Rajya Sabha, minister of state for IT and communications Shakeel Ahmad said a consortium of consultants led by ICICI Securities has suggested some options for restructuring of MTNL and BSNL.

“Since the enabling conditions for the suggested options are not appropriate enough to lead to a successful merger and considering the complexity of issues involved, the restructuring of BSNL and MTNL has been put on hold for the time being,” he added.

The government has been considering the restructuring of the two telcos for enabling them to achieve higher synergies in their operations. It had appointed a consortium of consultants to seek suggestions.

Meanwhile, Ahmad said over 94 lakh telephone connections were deactivated during verification drive of all the users by telecom service providers.

The companies, which have deactivated the mobile numbers of those users who have not been found genuine, include Bharti Airtel, Reliance Communications, Tata Teleservices, Idea, Hutchison Essar, Shyam Telelink and Aircel among others, he said. — PTI

Sydney, September 6
Chinese President Hu Jintao said on Thursday that Beijing took product safety "very seriously", as Asia Pacific ministers agreed to set up a food safety taskforce to ensure the health and safety of the region's population.

Australian trade minister Warren Truss said the taskforce, chaired by China and Australia, was not aimed at Beijing which has been grappling with a series of product recalls in a number of countries, ranging from toys to toothpaste.

"We are not targeting China, but we do expect goods that come into Australia to be safe," Truss told a news conference at the Asia Pacific Economic Cooperation (APEC) forum in Sydney.

The two leaders discussed new inter-agency structures of China, revisions to their laws and regulations and enhanced enforcement and inspection being undertaken by China.

APEC trade and foreign ministers issued a statement on Thursday saying they recognised the need to improve food safety to ensure "the health and safety of our populations".

The ministers announced the establishment of the APEC Food Safety Cooperation Forum, co-chaired by China and Australia.

The ministers also said they had recommended that the 21 APEC leaders, who will hold a summit in Sydney this weekend, should issue a stand-alone statement on world free trade talks. The APEC ministers agreed to work towards further regional economic integration, but paid only lip service to a free trade zone, saying it was a "long term prospect".— Reuters

New Delhi, September 6
The Supreme Court today issued a notice on a petition seeking to stay implementation of public offer made by London-based Vedanta Resources to buy 20 per cent additional stake in iron ore exporting firm Sesa Goa Ltd.

A bench headed by Justice BN Agrawal sought response from the Centre, Bombay Stock Exchange, market regulator SEBI, Mitsui and its UK-based subsidiary Finsider International as well as Sesa Goa on a petition filed by one Harinarayan G Bajaj, a BSE broker. The apex court also accepted Bajaj's plea to implead Vedanta as a party in the matter.

SEBI had recently given its approval to Vedanta's open offer to buy additional stake from the company's shareholders.

Earlier, the apex court had sought response on a plea challenging the acquisition of controlling stake in the iron ore mining firm Sesa Goa.

Vedanta had early this year acquired Mitsui's 51 per cent stake in Sesa Goa for $981 million, at a price of Rs 2,036 per share. To clinch the deal, Vedanta acquired 100 per cent of Finsider, which owns Mitsui's stake in Sesa Goa.— PTI

New Delhi, September 6
An out-of-court settlement for division of the Bajaj empire appears unlikely anytime soon, with patriarch Rahul Bajaj today accusing younger brother Shishir of raising additional demands that cannot be met.

“From our side we are offering what they wanted earlier. Now, they (Shishir’s side) are asking for more, which we can’t give them now,” Bajaj said.

His comments come days after the company law board (CLB) adjourned hearing on the family settlement case to October 22, asking the two warring factions to settle the issue amicably.

The two side have been trying hard to hammer out a mutual agreement, but have so far been unable to do so.

Bajaj, however, said he was trying hard from his side to settle the matter as there were still some weeks to go for the next hearing of the CLB.

“In case we do not succeed, then we do not have any option but to go to court... we will try our best and hope that something happens this time,” he said.

When CLB resumes hearing, the two sides are expected to report about the outcome of their negotiations. If they fail to reach a settlement by then, the board would resume its scheduled procedure and hear the case for three consecutive days from October 23-25. The four-year-old case has reached the final stages of argument.

Yesterday, Bajaj Auto vice-president Madhur Bajaj had said that they were still trying to settle the issue. He had also said if talks between the brothers fail, then they would be bound by the CLB order. — PTI

New Delhi, September 6
Environmental NGO Greenpeace has urged market leader in mobile phones in India, Nokia, to review its business partnership with HCL if the latter does not stop producing hazardous computers.

“As Nokia now leads the global race in electronics sector for clean products, it is in best position to tell its business partner HCL, the IT market leader in India, to also go green. In fact, so far Nokia is the only company that has made its products completely PVC-free,” says Greenpeace.

To stress their point of view, Greenpeace activists also took an installation of e-waste with message that read: ‘Nokia: Ask HCL to go green’ and delivered it at Nokia headquarter in Gurgaon. Greenpeace toxics campaigner Pranav Sinha says the aim was to urge Nokia to review its association with HCL “which has scored so poorly in its environmental commitment”.

The environmental NGO has been demanding that the HCL must have a time-bound, operational road map to phase out toxics and implement a free and easy take back system, with binding commitments.

“It should not be vague aspirational objectives. The information HCL has recently put in the public domain on its phase-out of hazardous chemicals is misleading and does not indicate what, if anything, will change in the company’s operations,” Greenpeace says.