Hindustan Times | April 12, 2011 | Manoj Gairola
It’s really back to the future. The roots of the New Telecom Policy that communications and IT minister Kapil Sibal announced on Monday lie as far back as 2003, when the NDA was in power. The key proposals — a single unified licence for all services and delinking spectrum from licence — were initiated during the NDA regime in 2003, following Telecommunications Regulatory Authority of India (TRAI) recommendations in October 2003. These were subsequently approved by the group of ministers and the Cabinet. Arun Shourie was the communications and IT minister.
“It is recommended that within six months unified licencing regime should be initiated for all services covering all geographical areas using any technology,” the TRAI recommendations of October 2003 stated. “The regime would be finalised through a consultative process, once in-principle approval is received from the government.”
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