Ex-telecom minister Sukh Ram speaks to Pramod Kumar in an interview

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The money recovered was not mine

It's generally held that politicians cling on to politics till their last breath. Ghani Khan Choudhury is an apt example. But you seemed to have called it a day long ago...
I have had an active career as a politician for 45 years and wanted to continue. But I was fed up with the accusations. If I had not been maligned, I could have worked as a communication minister for a few more years and would have taken telecommunications in this country to newer heights.

The accusations such as giving undue benefits to Himachal Futuristic Communications Limited as well as favouritism in allocating circles are still going on...
I was let down by petty politics. There were people inside the party who ambushed me. The Parliament was standstill for 13 days. However, after intervention of the Supreme Court, I got reprieve. I am positive that the Supreme Court will surely deliver justice to me. It is long deserved.

But CBI did recover 'unaccounted for' money from your houses in Delhi and Mandi...
The money CBI recovered was not mine. Since the matter is subjudice, I can not make further comments. The party had asked me to rent out a few rooms at my houses in Delhi and Mandi for their use. I was going to UK for my wife's treatment. I gave them permission to use the rooms. I had no idea what those rooms were used for. I am paying the price for that for the last 14 years.

People find similarities between you and Raja vis-a-vis 2G spectrum issue...
This is not done. This is uncalled for. I brought the information revolution to this country. I brought Internet and cellular services. I made the first mobile call to Jyoti Basu and today the common man is reaping the benefit. I introduced a few policy changes. I started the process of awarding the bid to the lowest bidder. Prior to that, contracts used to be split between all the bidders. Because of the change in policy, I managed to fill the coffer of this country with Rs 2200 crore in one year. Raja, on the other hand, has siphoned off money.

How do you feel when you see the party you belonged to reeling under the accusation of corruption. Even the PMO has come into the line of fire...
When I was the minister of state for planning and implementation, Manmohan Singh was deputy chairman of the Planning Commission. We have worked very closely for a couple of years. I am of the opinion that he is an honest man with a progressive vision. It is expected that the Opposition will level charges. He has been a successful Prime Minister. The accusations about him are baseless. If a particular minister is corrupt, the onus lies on that minister.

You are praising Manmohan Singh while his government has been unable to contain rising prices...
In the recently held AICC meeting, the core issue was corruption. I was a bit bewildered. I would have expected price rise to be the core issue. I get surprised and pained in equal measures when I hear ministers saying that they don't have the magic wand to contain the prices. How can somebody give such a reckless and irresponsible statement? When I was in charge of the ministry of agriculture and public distribution, I successfully managed to distribute grains to all the states even though the country was reeling under drought. I was praised for this at an international conference too. But I don't see ministers concerned doing so today. That is why the Prime Minister had to intervene.

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Sukh ram, pramod mahajan, arun shourie, dayanidhi maran, a. Raja...

growth of corruption in the telecom sector has certainly kept pace with the fast growing subscriber base, feels Sutanu Guru. none of the corporate entities nor a single minister has been made to pay till now, he further points out

The more things change, the more they remain the same. I still remember the spring of 1996 when the name Raja had more traditional connotations. The cricket World Cup was on in the Indian sub-continent and fans were praying for Sachin Tendulkar to work his magic so that India could lift the Cup. The Central government - riddled, assaulted and besieged by scams and scandals - was paralysed and as lame duck as a duck can be lame. And of course, even as cricket fever was hotting up, Indian citizens were both horrified and titillated by a strange piece of news. Sukh Ram, who had presided over the first auction of mobile telephony services in India in 1995 as Union telecom minister till he was "reshuffled", was arrested for a 'telecom' scam. Forget the names of the other players involved; they really don't matter anymore. But guess what, the estimated loss to the exchequer was about Rs 1.7 crore. Yes, the money lost by the government was a paltry Rs 1.7 crore!

But you must remember, Sachin Tendulkar was then earning a pittance for endorsements compared to the upwards of Rs 100 crore he makes nowadays. And of course, like in 1996, India still adores its favourite cricketer as the nation hopes he will win the Cup for India. And yes, the cricket World Cup is back in the sub-continent. It is also spring and the season for the flowers to bloom. Of course, like 15 years back in 1996, it is also the season for scams and scandals to bloom in such a manner that the Central government appears more paralysed than a lame duck. The more things change, the more they remain the same. The only difference is what you and I can call the impact of 'inflation' while measuring the magnitude of the scams. In 1996, it was alleged that Sukh Ram was responsible for the State losing Rs 1.7 crore in revenue. In 2011, the CAG estimates that another former telecom minister A. Raja is probably responsible for the State to lose Rs 1.7 lakh crore — ten thousand times more than the loss in 1996. In a perverse way, you could use that to applaud the manner in which the Indian economy has grown in this era of crony capitalism masqeurading as liberal economic policies with a special emphasis on the aam aadmi.

In 1996, Sukh Ram was accused of changing rules and goalposts to favour companies close to him. In the 1995 auction of mobile phone services, a then unknown entity called Himachal Futuristic Communications Ltd (Sukh Ram belongs to Himachal Pradesh) had shocked India Inc. by bidding huge amounts for telecom circles. When it became clear that the company could not pay the license fee and stood to forfeit its bank guarantee, Sukh Ram allegedly changed policy in a way that a company could get only three circles. Himachal Futuristic is still a player in the business. It shot back into limelight last year when a group company Infotel successfully bid for 22 circles for Broadband Wireless Access (BWA). Intriguingly, Infotel sold its majority stake soon after to a company controlled by Mukesh Ambani. Of course, you are quite familiar with how Raja bent, broke and changed rules to suit the interests of corporate houses he favoured. But did you happen to know that his predecessor and another DMK leader Dayanidhi Maran (whose brother controls the Sun Network) handed out 27 licences during his tenure and that 14 of them went to Aircel? Didn't I say that the more things change, the more they remain the same?

Let us take the Sukh Ram - A.Raja comparison a bit further. Sukh Ram was arrested in February, 1996, and eventually convicted in 2009. He is out on bail as his appeal is pending in the Delhi High Court. He still vociferously defends his controversial track record (See Exclusive Interview). A. Raja too has been arrested recently. The question is that will another journalist interview Raja 15 years hence in 2026 while he enjoys bail and vociferously defends his controversial track record? The way our Indian 'demonocracy' (an apt term coined by my editor-in-chief) is, don't be surprised if that scenario actually turns out to be true.

I won't bore you with the gory details of the 2G scam and the unending brouhaha that goes on around it. It is enough to realise that Indian democracy is in urgent and dire need of serious efforts and reform. My colleague interviewed N. Vittal - who was telecom secretary when Sukh Ram was telecom minister - in his modest apartment in Chennai (See Exclusive Interview). The 73-year-old Vittal, who created history as the Chief Vigilance Commissioner by posting the names of bureaucrats accused of corruption on the official CVC Website, is clinical as usual when he assesses the state of the State: "I had multiple problems in my body a few years back. Many experts coordinated their diagnosis and treatments for my recovery. India as a body politic now suffers a multiple organ failure of governance. 2G represents this."

There are a few things about the telecom scam you should know which have been sidelined in the run-up to the arrest of A. Raja, the voyeuristic tattles resonating in the media thanks to the leak of the Radia tapes and the persistent threats of Opposition parties to paralyse working of Parliament if their demand for a JPC is not met. Most interesting is the manner in which the BJP is acting holier than thou. Since public memory is short, let me remind you of a few interesting things that happened to the telecom sector when the BJP-led NDA alliance was in power at the Centre. Jagmohan was the telecom minister and even as he was being eased out from the ministry, the government changed the licence fee regime to a new revenue sharing regime in 1999. This was a highly controversial move then though there are many who still agree that freeing the mobile operators from the burden of paying huge licence fees every year to the government enabled them to lower tarriffs and trigger the real telecom revolution. That may be so. But when the late Pramod Mahajan was the telecom minister, Reliance made a blatant back door entry into the telecom sector in a manner everybody acknowledges was unethical and almost certainly illegal. Essentially, Reliance launched de facto mobile phone services across India without paying a single Paisa as licence fee even as other operators like Bharti, Hutch, BPL and others had paid thousands of crores as licence fees. This 'free' backdoor entry enabled Reliance to launch that famous campaign that promised a mobile call at 40 Paisa per minute. Pramod Mahajan was replaced by the so-called incorruptible Arun Shourie as telecom minister. In his tenure, Reliance was not penalised for its sins. It was just asked to pay a licence fee and continue operating as if nothing had happened. Basically, whether it is the Congress or the BJP, you could say that each had its own set of favourites and each bent and broke rules whenever convenient.

Another interesting thing about the fascinating telecom sector is the manner in which established business houses have clawed back into the game after losing out completely in the early years of mobile telephony in India. For a few years after mobile services were launched in India, the big players were BPL, Bharti, Max, Usha and a few others. The Tatas, Birlas and Ambanis were not considered serious players. But look at the secenario now. Barring Vodafone (which is a multinational and which has allegedly defrauded the Indian exchequer to the tune of $2 billion in unpaid taxes) and Sunil Mittal of Bharti, the big boys of Indian telecom are Ratan Tata, Kumarmangalam Birla and Anil Ambani (with Mukesh Ambani expected to join that big league soon with a broadband wireless access network). So, in a way, the Empire of India Inc. is striking back as seen in the case of the telecom sector. Analysts used to say that liberal economic policies led to a blossoming of entrepreneurs who had no chance in the earler era of licence permit raj. Sadly, discretionary and arbitrary decisions by minister after minister holding portfolio after portfolio seem to be getting worse forms of the license permit raj back into the picture.

The last thing I would like to highlight in this sleazy saga is a lament that will soon be forgotten. There is little doubt that Indian telecom has been a success story. From zero in 1995 to 700 million subscribers in 2011 is no mean achievement. But even as this sector blossomed, the two state-owned entities of MTNL and BSNL seem to be in terminal decline. They are taking suicidal decisions that are inexplicable and meant only to benefit private sector players.

And of course, as mentioned earlier, the telecom sector and the 2G scam is just an example and a manifestation. Similar examples abound in virtually every sector in India. In the coming weeks, watch out for a TSI story on how crony capitalism ensured that private airlines benefitted immensely even as the state-owned Air India - like BSNL and MTNL - followed a suicidal path towards destruction and bankruptcy. And do remember that like telecom, aviation is also considered a success story in India!

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Rashmi Bansal Publisher of JAMMAG magazine caught red-handed, for details click on the following links.

• Hindustan Times Article - Publisher goes underground
• Rashmi Bansal (Editor of JAMMAG)
• Rashmi Bansal (Publisher of JAMMAG)