New Delhi:
Telecom Minister Kapil Sibal on Thursday termed as "unfortunate" the war of words between operators and cautioned that such practices were not healthy for the growth of the sector.
Asked to comment on operators accusing each other for being favoured by the government in spectrum allocation, he said such discourses in the public domain should be avoided.
"What I find today is very unfortunate, some operators are at war with others. This is because at any given point of time they felt that they had been discriminated against," he said.
However, he ensured a level-playing-field for all the telecom service providers going forward.
When asked about Tata Sons Chairman Ratan Tata accusing BJP-led NDA regime for policy flip-flops in telecom sector Sibal said, "I guess he (Ratan Tata) must be making that statement with some kind of knowledge and information. I cannot comment on that."
The Minister, however, did not lose an opportunity to make a point saying that may be the reason why the Opposition, which has been demanding a JPC probe into the 2G issue and has disrupted Parliament proceedings and does not want a debate on it.
Ratan Tata today said that many of the flip-flops in the telecom policies occurred during the BJP regime.
Tatas were accused by Chandrasekhar for not being transparent and being one of the biggest beneficiaries of the government telecom policy.
Tata has noted that the government auditor the Comptroller and Auditor General (CAG) has not ascribed any value to 48 new GSM licences issued to incumbents during 2004-2008 and 65 mhz of additional spectrum.