The National Telecom Policy 2012 (NTP 2012) has now become the official policy after one year of discussions. Of course, the context of the policy – the aftermath of the 2G scam – has now changed with 122 licenses being cancelled by the Supreme Court. So some of the earlier drivers of the new policy, bailing out the new entrants who had secured licenses fraudulently are no longer there, but the broad thrust of the policy – help the private sector at the cost of the public sector telecom companies remain. Also a new scam is in the making.

The 2G scam has shown how scarce national resources like the spectrum have been given at throw away prices to big capital. In this game, there are not only older players such as Reliance, Unitech and Tatas, but also newer players closely linked to certain political parties and figures. DB Realty and the close proximity of Shahid Balwa with Kanimozhi and Sharad Pawar has been doing the rounds for quite some time and is now becoming public.