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A controversy is brewing within the Prime Minister's Task Force on Information Technology over who will head a sub-group on the new telecommunications policy.

Prime Minister Atal Bihari Vajpayee announced late last month that a high-powered panel would prepare the new telecom policy within three months.

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Officials say that now there are serious differences among task force members on the nomination of Convenor N Seshagiri as the head of the telecom policy sub-group. Seshagiri had led the panels on software and electronics hardware that submitted their recommendations recently.

Planning Commission Deputy Chairman Jaswant Singh, who is co-chairperson of the task force, is in favour of nominating Telecom Secretary Anil Kumar to head the sub-group.

However, this has been opposed vehemently by sections of the task force and the government itself because there is a feeling that Kumar, who heads the Department of Telecommunication, holds interests that could be damaged by a truly liberal telecommunications policy.

"If DT is going to prepare the policy how is it going to be different from past policies. The failure of the National Telecom Policy of 1994 was precisely that it was prepared with little or no vision. Little has hanged on the ground to believe that the thinking within DoT is more radical," a member of the task force pointed out.

DoT has been accused of taking a partisan stance while preparing telecom policies. It has a severe conflict of interest because it creates telecom policy while running the country's largest telecom operation.

Private telecom operators, therefore accuse it of formulating policies loaded to its own advantage.

Sources also say that the Prime Minister's Office is yet to come out with the terms and reference for the task force on the topic.

Besides formulating a new telecom policy, the panel has been entrusted with studying the problems facing basic, cellular and other telecom service providers.

Private telecom service providers, especially basic and cellular telecom companies, are reeling under losses because of having grossly overestimated market demand for services and consequently overbidding on licence fees.

- Compiled from the Indian media

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