Sensationalism killed the telecom sector: Kapil Sibal

New Delhi, November 16: Attributing ‘sensationalism’ over the CAG’s presumptive loss figure of Rs.1.76 lakh-crore for the “killing” of the telecom sector, the Central Government, on Friday, said it planned to auction by March-end the circles that were not taken in the flopped sale of mobile phone spectrum this week.

It also rejected Opposition allegations that the government was celebrating the failure of the auction and said notwithstanding the poor response, it will garner the estimated Rs.40,000 crore from spectrum sales.

An Empowered Group of Ministers (EGoM) headed by Finance Minister P. Chidambaram will meet soon to decide on price and date for auction of spectrum in circles such as Delhi and Mumbai, Telecom Minister Kapil Sibal told a news conference here.

The government, which had set a reserve price of Rs.14,000 crore for pan-India spectrum on the basis of CAG’s assumption of Rs.1.76 lakh-crore loss caused to the exchequer in the previous sale in 2008, managed a meagre Rs.9,407.64 crore in the auction that lasted barely two days.

“The telecom story is no longer a story that we can talk about to the rest of the world.

People ask me the question, what happened? And quite frankly, I have no answers.

“All I can say that certain events took place and there was a level of sensationalism that took over and the government was, in a sense, limited in its policy prescriptions and had to move forward in a certain way which ultimately has resulted in what we have seen couple of days ago,” he said.

Mr. Sibal said the government got more than Rs.1 lakh-crore from the auction of 3G spectrum, which was used by CAG to base its presumptive loss. “But the customer got nothing” as there was no roll-out of 3G services.

“Where are those Rs.1.76 lakh-crore?” he asked in an apparent reference to the CAG estimate and the money garnered in the auction that concluded on Wednesday.

Mr. Chidambaram, responding to questions on the net gains made by the government, said, “I think you are all jumping to numbers. I thought we started by saying let’s stop myth making first. I think you are making or building more myths now.”

Comments

Add new comment

Coastaldigest.com reserves the right to delete or block any comments.
Coastaldigset.com is not responsible for its readers’ comments.
Comments that are abusive, incendiary or irrelevant are strictly prohibited.
Please use a genuine email ID and provide your name to avoid reject.

IndiGo CEO says less than 1,000 cancellations on Dec 6; normalcy by Dec 15

News Network

December 5,2025

New Delhi, Dec 5: IndiGo CEO Pieter Elbers issued a public apology this evening after more than a thousand flights were cancelled today, making it the "most severely impacted day" in terms of cancellations. The biggest airline of the country cancelled "more than half" of its daily number of flights on Friday, said Elbers. He also said that even though the crisis will persist on Saturday, the airline anticipates fewer than 1,000 flight cancellations.

"Full normalisation is expected between December 10 and 15, though IndiGo cautions that recovery will take time due to the scale of operations," the IndiGo CEO said.

IndiGo operates around 2,300 domestic and international flights daily.

Pieter Elbers, while apologising for the major inconvenience due to delays and cancellations, said the situation is a result of various causes.

The crisis at IndiGo stems from new regulations that boost pilots' weekly rest requirements by 12 hours to 48 and allow only two night-time landings per week, down from six. IndiGo has attributed the mass cancellations to "misjudgment and planning gaps".

Elbers also listed three lines of action that the airline will adopt to address the issue.

"Firstly, customer communication and addressing your needs, for this, messages have been sent on social media. And just now, a more detailed communication with information, refunds, cancellations and other customer support measures was sent," he said.

The airline has also stepped up its call centre capacity.

"Secondly, due to yesterday's situation, we had customers stranded mostly at the nation's largest airports. Our focus was for all of them to be able to travel today itself, which will be achieved. For this, we also ask customers whose flights are cancelled not to come to the airports as notifications are sent," the CEO said.

"Thirdly, cancellations were made for today to align our crew and planes to be where they need to start tomorrow morning afresh. Earlier measures of the last few days, regrettable, have proven not to be enough, but we have decided today to reboot all our systems and schedules, resulting in the highest numbers of cancellations so far, but imperative for progressive improvements starting from tomorrow," he added.

As airports witnessed chaotic scenes, the Directorate General of Civil Aviation (DGCA) stepped in to grant IndiGo a temporary exemption from stricter night duty rules for pilots. It also allowed substitution of leaves with a weekly rest period.

Civil Aviation Minister Ram Mohan Naidu has said a high-level inquiry will be ordered and accountability will be fixed.

Comments