The DoT informed the Joint Parliamentary Committee (JPC) on Thursday. Briefing the media, the JPC chairman P C Chacko said that there were sharp differences between the Ministry of Finance and the Telecom Ministry on the pricing of spectrum. He said, Ministry of Finance, in 2006, wanted the Committee of Secretaries to discuss allocation of additional spectrum and then refer the matter to a Group of Ministers. He said the Ministry of Finance had strongly favoured that pricing of spectrum should be part of the terms of reference of the GoM on the issue but the then Telecom Minister did not agree to it.
Mr. Chacko said the Union Cabinet had approved the Terms of Reference for the Group of Ministers, GoM, on allocation of additional spectrum and pricing was not in the terms of reference.
The JPC Chairman further said, P Chidambaram was at the helm of affairs in the Ministry of Finance then, while Dayanidhi Maran was the Telecom Minister. Maran felt that the pricing of spectrum was the prerogative of the administrative ministry and hence did not favour the matter among the terms of reference of the GoM.