Remember the Great Telecom Scam, Part I? Remember Sukh Ram? Short man? Congress Minister? Guy who was the Telecommunications Minister when P V Narasimha Rao was Prime Minister? Remember the stink that the Opposition raised, especially the Bharatiya Janata Party? It refused to allow Parliament to function till Sukh Ram was sacked or he quit…..

Well, how things have changed. Sukh Ram and his Himachal Vikas Party are stout and staunch partners of the BJP and keep its Government alive in the hilly State. And, now we really know where that affinity comes from…

You've heard of the NTP? Shorthand for a New Telecom Policy, that the Government is trying to push through. That despite reprimands from the President, the Election Commission, even the Delhi High Court.

Not only that even then Telecommunications Minister Jagmohan was against it. He refused to countenance the bailout package proposed by the Prime Minister's Office. So as a reward, he was booted out to the Urban Affairs Ministry. And guess who heads the Telecom Ministry now? A certain gentleman called Atal Behari Vajpayee!

So what's the great hassle about? It's about a lot of moolah and the charity shown by this Government towards telecom operators that could amount to a cumulative loss of nearly Rs 50,000 crore to the Indian exchequer.

Basically, it involves waiving the mandatory Rs 4000 crore license fee that has to be paid by the operators and allows to them to move on to a revenue sharing mode.

Why? Well, because the operators wept and wailed that they couldn't meet their obligations and the Government obliged them by letting them have their way.

So what's the operators' argument for an amnesty scheme? They actually don't have one except for saying that they overestimated the extent of their profits and thereby agreed to the license fee. Poor, poor guys. And the Government bought that. (Or was it the other way around).

In the process, angry protests from Jagmohan, the Finance Ministry and Attorney General Soli Sorabjee were ignored. Of course, Sorabjee did change his stand once Jagmohan was ousted.

Well, here we reproduce Jagmohan's own arguments against the proposal (they really fit into Jaal, because of their acerbic content):

The questions he asked were

1. ``Whether it is legally, constitutionally, financially, commercially or morally justifiable to sign legal agreements, after giving competitive bids, and then not to observe contractual obligations.

2. How would the People, Press, Parliament, Auditor General and Courts view non-recovery of as much as Rs 4000 crore of public dues?

3. How is it that some of the companies have sold their equity at premium and earned huge profits, if they are not doing good business? Is not the present pressure a ruse to enhance equity?

4. How is it that the alleged losses are being calculated with reference to the present point of time when most of the infrastructure investment are being made and in future mostly revenues would accrue and that too at an accelerated pace with the number of subscribers going up?

5. If the licencees are incurring losses, as claimed, how is that none of them have come forward to surrender the licence? Does it stand to reason that anyone losing in an enterprise would continue with it and have his losses multiplied?

6. If the business is not good, how is that new licencees have been coming in the field, such a Shyam Telelink in March 1998 for basic services and Srinivas Cellcom in May 1998 for cellular services?

7. If the licencees had made more profits than originally calculated, would they have come forward to share the extra gains with the licensors?

8. How is that the votaries of free enterprise are asking for state intervention?

9. While each individual company has a different area of operation and has signed separate agreements, why all cases are being taken up as if they constitute once single case?

10. If terms and conditions of licencees are not enforced, would it not set a bad precedent and encourage entrepreneurs in other fields to raise one plea or the other, to violate or circumvent the terms of the contract and also take tender conditions lightly?

11. Is there any example in any country, committed to market economy, wherein the terms and conditions of the contracts, secured on the basis of open tenders, have been allowed to be tampered with?

Good questions? No? But Vajpayeeji has no reply. But then, of course, this is a country where survival of the fittest matters, or should that be survival of the fattest wallets. You also have to remember that Lok Sabha elections are due and the Government members will need at least Rs 550 crore to contest all the constituencies. Now where could that come from? You could Sukh Ram, advisor-in-chief on telecom matters.