What Is 2G Scam

Corruption in India is not a secret from anyone, as it is prevalent from private to the public sector and almost everyone in the system is part of the misdoings. However, the extent to which the Indian public sector employees and politicians have taken corruption to is drastic.

Telecom Minister A. Raja, the man who turned his back on his countrymen by the sale of 2G spectrum at a minimal cost and caused damages to the country amounting to Rs. 176,000 crore (1 Crore = 10, 000, 000. Estimation in USD $38260 Million)

WHAT IS 2G?

• 2G means: Second-Generation WirelessTelephone Technology
• 2G is relatively new technology in the field of mobile.
• 2G is not just a network but a good technology.
• 2G spectrum was the revolutionary technology in their time,it comes with some more benefits.

1. SMS facility was first started with network.

2. Safe for the use, means security level was high.

3. Environmental conditions was very good for this network & nonetwork shortage was there.

History: 

2G spectrum technology was first launchedin 1991 in Finland only in the GSM mobilephones but this is not the latest technologythat we are using. As 2G was launched in1991 so many other technologies overcomeit with 2.5G, 2.75G technologies but the latesttechnology in present world is 3G.

The  2G spectrum scam

The 2G spectrum scam involved officials and ministers in theGovernment of India illegally undercharging mobile telephonycompanies for frequency allocation licenses, which they woulduse to create 2G subscriptions for cell phones. According to areport submitted by the Comptroller and Auditor General based onmoney collected from 3G licenses, the loss to the exchequer was176,379 crore (US$38.27 billion). The issuing of the 2G licensesoccurred in 2008, but the scam came to public notice when theIndian Income Tax Department investigated political lobbyist NiiraRadia and the Supreme Court of India took SubramaniamSwamy's complaints on record
[With Case type:Writ Petition(Civil),Case No:10, Year:2011]
. The case details of the main PILfiled with the supreme court is
Type:Writ Petition (Civil),CaseNo:423, Year:2010 

 

  Who is This Person :

 One of the main person behind theIndias Largest Corporate Fraud.

A. Raja (Born May 10, 1963,Perambalur ,Tamil Nadu,India) is an Indian politician from theDravida Munnetra Kazhagam(DMK) politicalparty. He is a member of the15th Lok Sabharepresenting theNilgiris constituency of Tamil Nadu. Raja was first elected to theLok Sabhain 1996 and first served asminister of statefrom 1999 to 2003. On beingre-elected to the Lok Sabha in 2004, he became acabinet minister inthe UPA government. In 2007, he became cabinet minister for communication and information technology. On being re-elected in2009 he was again appointed cabinet minister for communication andinformation technology until being tainted in the2G spectrum scamand resigning in 2010.

WHAT ARE THE CHARGES ON FORMER  TELECOM MINISTER A RAJA?

CHEAP TELECOM LICENSES

Entry fee for spectrum licenses in 2008 pegged at 2001 pricesMobile subscriber base had shot up to 350 million in 2008 from4million in 2001.

NO PROCEDURES FOLLOWED

Rules changed after the game had begun.Cut-off date for applications advanced by a week.Licenses issued on a first-come-first-served basis.No proper auction process followed, no bids invited.Raja ignored advice of TRAI, Law Ministry, Finance Ministry.TRAI had recommended auctioning of spectrum at market rates.
 Unitech, Swan Telecom got licenses without any prior telecomexperience .Swan Telecom given license even though it did not meeteligibility criteria.Swan got license for Rs.1537 crore, sold 45% stake to
Etisalatfor Rs.4200 crore.Unitech Wireless got license for Rs. 1661 crore, sold 60% stakefor Rs. 6200 crore.All nine companies paid DOT only Rs.10,772 crore for 2Glicences.

CORPORATE PERSONALITIES INVOVED

•  Anil Ambani-Reliance Group (ADAG) 
•  Shahid Balwa-DB Realty and DB Etisalat (Swan Telecom)
• Vinod Goenka - Dynamix Group
• Venugopal Dhoot-VideoconGroup
• Prashant Ruia-Essar Group

All of them have either been question by the CBI or areprospective suspects in the scam.

.

RESPONSE TO SCAM

TheCBIconducted raids on Raja and four other telecom officials -former telecom secretarySiddharth Behura, Raja's personal secretary R KChandolia, member telecom K Sridhar and DoTdeputy director general A K Srivastava on 8December 2010.

Raja, Behura and Chandolia were arrested on Feb2nd 2011