S-band agreement causes no loss for Govt: ISRO

[katharnak]

New Delhi: Embarrassed over allegations of another multi-crore spectrum scam, this time in S-band allotment, the Prime Minister's Office (PMO) has gone into overdrive. On Tuesday evening, the country's premier space research organisation, ISRO, in a rare press conference, came out to publicly defend the S-band spectrum deal with private firm Devas Multimedia.
Forty eight hours after the media raised the scam, the PMO stepped in denying any loss of revenue, saying no S-band spectrum was allocated to the private entity - Devas Multimedia.
The ISRO, echoing the Government's sentiment, said while the Antrix-Devas contract did take place with Cabinet approval, the decision to annul it was also taken unilaterally in 2009.

"The agreement was finalised and approved at Antrix board in 2005 and in December 2009, the ISRO decided to have a comprehensive review of the contract," said ISRO Chairman Dr K Radhakrishnan.

The bottomline remained that the red flag to this deal was raised long ago.

The internal audit of the Department of Space, also shared with the PMO, raised the very same concerns in 2010 that why was 70 Mhz of spectrum allocated to Devas Multimedia without a tender and that a regulatory framework for S-band services wasn't put in place.

The internal audit also hinted at misrepresentation of the exact amount of money that would be spend on GSAT 6 and 6A satellites - based on which the high value spectrum was committed to Devas.

And not just the S-band spectrum, the audit questioned the entire ISRO-Devas transponder deal.

Apart from procedure violations, the question of a conflict of interest was also clear. Two former ISRO officials MG Chandrashekhar and D Venugopal are on the Devas board.

Close on the heels of 2G, the S-band controversy has already snowballed into a political one.

"So far it's a preliminary report, but all indications are that the needle of suspicion pointing towards the ministry, which is directly under the Prime Minister's charge," said CPI(M) leader Sitaram Yechury.

"Spectrum is a national property - it's own by the Government of India. Whenever it is leased to anybody like ISRO or any others, they are trustee for their use. They cannot alienated by transfer or lease or otherwise," said BJP spokesperson Ravi Shankar Prasad.

ISRO's defence of terminating contracts being a complex process or a zero revenue loss theory is unlikely to cut ice with the Opposition. The S-band controversy has once again proved that the Government needs to treat spectrum and spectrum allocation as serious business.

[Bones bond]

*=: *=: *=:[quote author=katharnak link=topic=153273.msg1798817#msg1798817 date=1297192820]
New Delhi: Embarrassed over allegations of another multi-crore spectrum scam, this time in S-band allotment, the Prime Minister's Office (PMO) has gone into overdrive. On Tuesday evening, the country's premier space research organisation, ISRO, in a rare press conference, came out to publicly defend the S-band spectrum deal with private firm Devas Multimedia.
Forty eight hours after the media raised the scam, the PMO stepped in denying any loss of revenue, saying no S-band spectrum was allocated to the private entity - Devas Multimedia.
The ISRO, echoing the Government's sentiment, said while the Antrix-Devas contract did take place with Cabinet approval, the decision to annul it was also taken unilaterally in 2009.

"The agreement was finalised and approved at Antrix board in 2005 and in December 2009, the ISRO decided to have a comprehensive review of the contract," said ISRO Chairman Dr K Radhakrishnan.

The bottomline remained that the red flag to this deal was raised long ago.

The internal audit of the Department of Space, also shared with the PMO, raised the very same concerns in 2010 that why was 70 Mhz of spectrum allocated to Devas Multimedia without a tender and that a regulatory framework for S-band services wasn't put in place.

The internal audit also hinted at misrepresentation of the exact amount of money that would be spend on GSAT 6 and 6A satellites - based on which the high value spectrum was committed to Devas.

And not just the S-band spectrum, the audit questioned the entire ISRO-Devas transponder deal.

Apart from procedure violations, the question of a conflict of interest was also clear. Two former ISRO officials MG Chandrashekhar and D Venugopal are on the Devas board.

Close on the heels of 2G, the S-band controversy has already snowballed into a political one.

"So far it's a preliminary report, but all indications are that the needle of suspicion pointing towards the ministry, which is directly under the Prime Minister's charge," said CPI(M) leader Sitaram Yechury.

"Spectrum is a national property - it's own by the Government of India. Whenever it is leased to anybody like ISRO or any others, they are trustee for their use. They cannot alienated by transfer or lease or otherwise," said BJP spokesperson Ravi Shankar Prasad.

ISRO's defence of terminating contracts being a complex process or a zero revenue loss theory is unlikely to cut ice with the Opposition. The S-band controversy has once again proved that the Government needs to treat spectrum and spectrum allocation as serious business.
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