A new twist has been added to the ongoing war over subscriber-linked allocation criteria for spectrum.

A large section of the telecom industry has supported the view that there may actually be more mobile phone connections in India than currently being reported.

The claim, based on figures presented by the Indian Cellular Association (ICA) at a closed-door session of telecom players with the Confederation of Indian Industry (CII) on Saturday, may put to the test a recent claim by Tata Group Chairman Ratan Tata on the same issue.

Tata has asked the government not to allocate spectrum based on subscriber numbers since the figures are more likely to be ‘‘self-proclaimed’’ than accurate. His argument veers around to the view that subscriber numbers are often inflated to capture larger shares of spectrum.

But the ICA has brought forward numbers that show subscriber figures are more likely under-reported. According to industry sources present at the meeting, the ICA finds 15 million handsets were sold in the last three months, higher than the total subscribers reported over the period (some 13.5 million).

‘‘In April 2006 alone, five million-plus handsets were sold against four million connections,’’ sources quoted ICA as saying.

In addition, ICA showed that 15-20 per cent of handsets are sold after being refurbished and repaired or through illegal means or personally imported by users. These were not even considered by ICA, making for even greater handset shipments than officially accounted for.

‘‘In all, it seems like subscriber numbers are under-reported rather than inflated,’’ said a telecom industry executive.

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