Bharti Airtel's Sunil Bharti Mittal and Vodafone Group Chief Executive Vittorio Colao are among some of the top telecom chiefs who will meet Telecom Minister Kapil Sibal later on Wednesday to discuss their
concerns about 2G spectrum auction.
The meeting will take place at Sibal's residence.
Mittal and Colao will be joined by Telenor CEO Jon Fredrik Baksaas and Aditya Birla Group Chairman Kumar Mangalam Birla, a telecom department official told
IANS.
The chiefs met the secretary of the Department of Telecom (DoT) R. Chandrasekhar earlier in the day and are expected to meet Finance Minister Pranab Mukherjee as well.
On February 2, the Supreme Court had ordered the
cancellation of 122 telecom licences and asked the government to redistribute the licences through auction.
Now, Telecom Regulatory Authority of India (Trai) has
come up with recommendations for the auction. It has proposed the pan-India spectrum reserve price at Rs 3,622.18 crore for a 5 megahertz (Mhz) block in 1800 Mhz band.
It has also said the auction would be open to all the players, including the incumbents and the new players. Only those firms which are holding spectrum beyond the prescribed cap should not be allowed.
The proposals have received
strong criticisms from the industry and sector watchers alike, following which the Telecom Commission has sought more information and clarifications from the regulator on its recommendations.
In a joint letter, the firms last week also urged Sibal not to accept Trai's recommendation or else the call tariffs would shoot up by 25-30 per cent.
They have also requested the minister to reduce the reserve price by about 80 per cent and auction all available spectrum.
With inputs from IANS 
Telecom Minister Kapil Sibal 
Special 
