Sharad Pawar announced as new head EGoM on telecom

Agriculture Minister Sharad Pawar on 29 June 2012 announced as a new head of Empowered Group of Ministers (EGoM) on telecom after Pranab Mukherjee because Pranab Mukherjee resigned for the contest of Presidential elections due to this the EGom meeting on 21 June 2012 was postponed.

In February 2012, The Supreme Court cancelled 122 2G telecom licenses issued during the time period of previous telecom minister A.Raja and asked the government to complete spectrum auction by 31 August 2012. There will be an EGoM meeting on 2 July 2012 to decide on future action by companies.

In the last meeting on 5 June 2012 EGoM had compressed for the auction of 10 Mhz of airwaves in 8 slots of 1.25 Mhz each in the frequency band for 2G GSM services. The EGoM also finalised auction of 3.75 Mhz of airwaves in the band currently used for CDMA services.

WHAT IS CAG SPECTRUM SCAM?

The 2G spectrum scam is the 2G licenses which were issued to private telecom companies at casual prices in 2008. The scam charged 1.76 lakh crore rupees to the government. In spectrum scam the rules and procedures for issuing licenses were not followed.