ISRO agreement did not mention end-use terms, to be annulled (Third Lead)
By IANSTuesday, February 8, 2011
NEW DELHI - The government Tuesday admitted that the agreement between Indian Space Research Organisations commercial arm and a private company on spectrum allocation had not explicitly mentioned the end-use terms but said the deal was in the process of being cancelled and suitable action will be taken for any lapses.
Addressing media persons here, Secretary (Space) K. Radhakrishnan and Planning Commission Member (Space) K. Kasturirangan said that a decision had been taken to annul the agreement. They said spectrum from the scarce S-band had not been alloted to Devas Multimedia, the private company with which ISROs Antrix Corporation had entered into an agreement and added that there was no question of loss of revenue.
Radhakrishnan said that the agreement, which had been approved by the Antrix Corporation board in 2005, entailed the launch of two satellites.
In December 2009, the Department of Space decided to review the Antrix-Devas agreement and see how to meet the emerging strategic requirements of the country, Radhakrishnan said.
He said that the review process was carried out and the matter was subsequently taken up with the Space Commission.
He said the Space Commission took a decision in July 2010 of according high priority to the countrys strategic requirements and societal needs using S-band in possession of ISRO and take action to annul the contract that Antrix had with Devas”.
Admitting that the agreement had not been cancelled yet, he said that the process was being carried out. To terminate a contract is very complex, Radhakrishnan said.
Answering queries, he said that internal review process was being done and necessary action will be taken as part of procedures followed in any government department.
He said that the agreement did not explicitly mention that 90 percent of the capacity of the two satellites will be given to the contracting party and the remaining will be used for our own purposes.
Ideally, we should have mentioned. This is a question we have addressed ourselves, he said.
