FRONT PAGE | Friday, January 29, 2010 | Email | Print | 
BSNL spins web of lies to save Raja
J Gopikrishnan | New Delhi
Tries to cover up shortlisting of non-existent company for WiMax franchise
The BSNL is cooking up one lie after another to save its ‘political’ master, who reportedly arm-twisted the officials in granting WiMax franchise to a non-existent company.
First, the BSNL claimed that the franchisee short-listed for running WiMax operation in Chennai, West Bengal and Haryana and Himachal Pradesh was one Ampules (company). The news was widely reported in the media. When The Pioneer carried a report on Wednesday that this was a non-existent company, the BSNL came with a rejoinder, identifying the short-listed firm as Ampoules & Auto Private Limited of Kolkata.
In its rejoinder to The Pioneer, the BSNL’s Chennai unit said, “The company M/s Ampoules & Auto Private Limited, Kolkata, who has participated in the said tender is a registered firm under the Registrar of Companies, Government of India.” The signatory of the letter is AGM (Admn & Legal) of BSNL, Chennai unit.
A cursory look at the online registry of the Ministry of Corporate Affairs shows that Ampoules & Auto Private Limited is not registered as a company with any of the Registrars of Companies.
As per the guidelines, only Indian companies with Rs 100-crore turnover per year for the last two years could qualify to be a WiMax franchisee. These strict norms were imposed last year by the PMO when Telecom Minister A Raja tried to manipulate the franchisee allotment and favour his friendly companies.
According to highly placed sources, the BSNL officials were arm-twisted to entertain the application of this unborn company. Raja had earlier made an attempt to capture a stake in the WiMax franchise process through a Malaysian firm Wellcom Communications. But after The Pioneer’s expose, the moved was aborted.
Sources said that the so-called Ampoules & Auto Private Limited is being floated by the same elements to grab the money-spinning WiMax operation.
“When we asked for incorporation document, Ampoules people told us they had approached the RoC in Chennai to form a company. But somehow the process met a roadblock,” said a BSNL official from Chennai.
“All companies were required to submit their latest balance sheets to prove that they had an yearly turnover of Rs100 crore. But in this case we were forced to accept application without any such formalities,” disclosed the official.
When, in early 2009, Raja tried to grant WiMax franchisee to Wellcom Communications, which applied through its Indian subsidiary company, Raja’s close associate T Silvarajoo was the Indian director of this company. He is a sub-contractor of CPWD, hailing from Raja’s hometown Peramballur.
When this move was exposed, Raja tried to manipulate the procedures through another aide Sanjay Kapoor's five shell companies, formed on a single date with same witnesses, auditor and notary. The controversies forced PMO to cancel the entire process and invited imposed strict conditions.
This time, last week, the BSNL had finalised four firms, including the non-existent Ampoules for allotment of WiMax franchisee. The other three firms are Teracom Limited, Adhishwar India Ltd and Chennai-based Take Solutions Ltd.
WiMax (Worldwide Interoperability for Microwave Access) is faster than 3G and 4G in providing Internet connection to mobiles and laptops. The BSNL’s WiMax franchisee is considered as a lucrative business as the private players get 70-80 per cent share of the revenue, out of the expense of the public sector undertakings huge infrastructure.
The franchisee also enjoys the advantage of holding of 20 Mega Hertz of Spectrum, which they could offload stakes at an exorbitant price to another company. In case of 2G spectrum allotment, real estate companies Swan and Unitech sold their stakes to multinationals at huge margin.
Ampoules is offering only 31.28 per cent (Chennai), 27.45 per cent (Haryana), 21 per cent (West Bengal) and 20.75 per cent (Himachal Pradesh) of the revenue share to the BSNL.
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