After  the supreme court’s order to cancel the 2G spectrum licenses awarded in 2008 by former union telecom minister A Raja, the government has decided to complete the whole process of auction, payments, awarding licenses in 400 days time — by May next year. 

Speaking to the media on the sidelines of an industry meet organised by FICCI on Wednesday, R Chandrasekhar, secretary, department of telecommunications said, “The entire process of auction of the second generation spectrum will be completed in 400 days.” However, there should not be any bidding without figuring out the economic value of the spectrum and hence the department would soon be conducting an assessment to know the economic value of the spectrum, he noted. 

Reacting to a query on the government’s stand on the apex court’s decision on 2G licenses cancellations, he said that the government is looking at all legal issues [related] with the order.  Nonetheless, he said, the government had no plans to challenge the supreme court’s order on the 2G license cancellation. 

During the interaction with industry, he also elaborated on the proposed national broadband plan, saying, “ The government is committed to providing broadband connectivity through the national optical fibre network (NOFN) under which government will lay down fibre to all the districts headquarters and from these headquarters to the gram panchayats.”

He assured that the department  will ensure the availability of fibre to all the industry players on a non-discriminatory basis. He also said that the high level committee on NOFN, which is co chaired by Sam Pitroda and Nandan Nilekani, is grappling with technology and management issues.