Nripendra Misra tipped to be new TRAI chief

Category: Government | No Comments | Posted on March 11, 2006

Former DoT secretary Nripendra Misra is tipped to replace the high-profile Pradip Baijal, who is likely to retire on March 22, as the new TRAI chairperson.

According to ET, Union steel secretary Mano Ranjan and Tamil Nadu finance secretary Raja Raman are also in the race but Mr Misra is the frontline contender.

After retiring as DoT secretary last year, Mr Misra assumed the reins as chairman of Chennai-based C-DoT Alcatel Research Centre, a 51:49 joint venture between France’s Alcatel and Centre for Development of Telematics (C-DoT) believed to be a pet project of telecom minister Dayanidhi Maran.

Mr Misra appointment is expected to go a long way in building a bridge between DoT and TRAI. It is common knowledge that Mr Maran and Mr Baijal had serious differences on core policy issues.

Obvious pointers were DoT’s outright rejection of a majority of Trai recommendations on broadband services, including unbundling of the local loop, reduction of spectrum fee for broadband service providers or for that matter, the open-sky policy for DTH operators.

What’s more, the DoT had also rejected Trai’s proposals on spectrum trading and has differed on the computation of ADC. DoT and Trai have also failed to come to any consensus on the complex issue of 3G spectrum pricing.

Also, the three-member top-level team at TRAI will be reconstituted by mid-April. While Trai member (technical) DPS Seth retired on March 9, the other member PK Sarma retires in early April.

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