TRAI disbanded, stripped of judicial powers

TRAI disbanded, stripped of judicial powers
ENS Economic Bureau

New Delhi, Jan 19: Following several months of bitter wrangling between the Government and the Telecom Regulatory Authority of India (TRAI), the Union Cabinet tonight decided to disband the TRAI as it exists today, to form a new truncated TRAI, and to hand over its quasi-judicial powers to a new dispute settlement and appellate tribunal. A new ordinance, the Telecom Regulatory Amendment Ordinance 2000, will be issued shortly to enforce this.

While the Cabinet's decision on the TRAI is certainly bad news for the current chief, Justice S S Sodhi, Infotech Minister Pramod Mahajan said the move would actually strengthen the authority which had faced several adverse court rulings in the past over its orders on tariffs and various other issues. All disputes over the rulings of the new TRAI will now not be challenged in the High Court, but will be heard by the new dispute tribunal. Rulings by this tribunal will only be challengeable in the Supreme Court.

Mahajan who briefed the press on the Cabinet's decisionsaid that under the new proposal, the TRAI's recommendations on other issues will be absolutely binding on the Government this has been a grey area in the current TRAI Act.

It will now be incumbent on the Government, for instance, to seek the recommendations of the new TRAI before issuing any licenses; the TRAI will also be empowered to fix terms and conditions of inter-connectivity between service providers; and will make recommendations on the need and timing of a new service provider and the terms and conditions applicable to the new player, Mahajan said.

The Cabinet approved the setting up of a joint venture company, Sankhya Vahini India for transmitting high speed data across the country. The joint venture will have four partners namely the department of telecommunications which will hold 45 per cent of the Rs 300 crore paid-up capital; IU Net which is a fully owned subsidiary of Carnegie Mellon University will hold 49 per cent; the Ministry of Information Technology will hold two per cent and theIndian Institutes will hold four per cent.

The Cabinet cleared two projects in the power sector. The Teesta Hydro Project in East Sikkin has been cleared at a cost of Rs 2,198 crore which is the cost estimate of April 1999. Also the transmission project for evacuating power from the Talcher thermal unit has been cleared. Power from Talcher in Orissa is for the southern part of the country.

In another decision the cabinet gave approval for signing a double taxation avoidance treaty with Switzerland. And gave the go ahead to Indian Oil Corporation for acquiring 4,400 square metres of defence land for enlarging the pipeline network to refineries.

The Government also approved several other important decisions like reducing the price of aviation turbine fuel by almost half, and charging sales tax on this at 4 per cent or less. This move will directly benefit the private sector Jet Airways immediately, as the airline has recently bought small turbo-prop aircraft. Infotech Minister Pramod Mahajan who briefedthe press following the 3-hour Cabinet meeting said this was aimed at making flying aircraft economically viable to remote areas like the North-East states and Jammu and Kashmr, and would be applicable to all airlines that operated such aircraft.

Mahajan also said ``this may tempt Indian Airlines to go in for turbo-props like ATRs.'' Last year, the Government had put considerable pressure on Indian Airlines to buy ATRs, but IA's chief Anil Baijal had resisted this, saying they were unviable.