Neck to neck competition for telecom secretary post

Department of information technology secretary J Satyanarayana and consumer affairs secretary Pankaj Agarwal, former head of the National Internet Exchange of India, have emerged as the front-runners for the DoT secretary post. Agarwal, a 1978-batch IAS officer, has earlier served as joint secretary in the department of information technology. 

Satyanarayana has strong backers in the telecom department (DoT). He joined the department of information technology in February 2012. During R Chandrasekhar’s time, both 2G auctions — November 2012 and March 2013 — flopped. Also, he could not address problems faced by the telecom industry after the Supreme Court order on February 2, 2012.But Chandrasekhar took strong action against telecom giants such as Bharti Airtel, Vodafone, Idea Cellular, Tata Communications, Reliance Communications, etc. 

The new telecom secretary will have his hands full in engaging with industry to minimise litigation and pull the sector out of regulatory mire. Among the challenges to be tackled will be conducting the next round of airwave sales and clearing the air on spectrum pricing, taking key decisions on the controversial one-time airwaves charge on existing telcos, and taking a call on spectrum reframing. The secretary will also be expected to manage the upcoming license renewals of GSM operators starting November 2014.

Source: http://cablequest.org/news/national-news/item/1905-neck-to-neck-competition-for-telecom-secretary-post.html