An official told FE that the sudden decision to rope in Pitroda was taken on Tuesday. “The committee under Pitroda would take stock at frequent intervals and ensure there are no slip-ups in the 3G spectrum auction schedule,” the official said. The revised programme sets January 14 for auctions, with a pre-bid meet on November 16.

Pitroda’s induction is being seen in political circles as the government’s loss of faith in communications & IT minister A Raja. Clearly, the Centre is leaving nothing to chance as it hopes to garner Rs 35,000 crore from 3G auctions in the current fiscal. Raja had sprung a surprise last month when sought the finance ministry’s intervention to have 20 MHz vacated by the defence forces. He had said that without the spectrum, auctions might not take place this year.

However, finance minister Pranab Mukherjee subsequently emphasised that auctions would take place on time as issues related to reserve price and number of slots in each circle had been resolved by an empowered group of ministers on August 27. CEOs of the country’s top mobile firms also told FE there should be no further delay in 3G spectrum auctions as the country already lagged far behind in this technology.

DoT and the defence forces have been squabbling over the ownership of and vacation schedule for spectrum for some time. Defence maintains that it is the owner of spectrum and would vacate it only once an optic fibre network is readied by BSNL.

However, DoT also claims ownership of the spectrum awarded to defence at various intervals, saying it should be vacated in phases rather than waiting for the defence’s optic fibre network to be built.

At dispute is 20 MHz, which defence is supposed to vacate on a priority basis so that there is enough spectrum to hold auctions for five slots in each of the country’s 22 circles.