KBS SIDHU WRITES TO CABINET SECRETARY T.V. SOMANATHAN SEEKING A COMMITTEE OF SECRETARIES TO REBUILD OVERSIGHT OF INDIA’S TELECOM AND DIGITAL REGULATORS
Face2News/Chandigarh
The dissolution of the 37-year-old Digital Communications Commission, formerly the Telecom Commission, has removed the only in-house Finance check on spectrum pricing. It has also left India without any forum in which its telecom, data, cyber-security, space and aviation regulators consult one another, according to KBS Sidhu, retired Special Chief Secretary, Government of Punjab.
On 21 September, the same day the Centre’s resolution dissolving the Commission was published in the Gazette of India, KBS Sidhu wrote to Cabinet Secretary T.V. Somanathan. He asked for a Committee of Secretaries to examine, within about ninety days, the institutional arrangements that should replace the Commission. He wrote as a private citizen, and he is not aligned with any political party.
The Union Cabinet approved the dissolution on 16 September, and the resolution is dated 19 September. Created in April 1989 as the Telecom Commission and renamed in 2018, the body had long been hollowed out. Two of its three full-time Member posts lay vacant, and the Member (Finance) was due to retire in February 2027. Its last decision, on 3 September, cleared TRAI’s recommendations on satellite spectrum for operators including Starlink, Eutelsat OneWeb and Jio. Final decisions now rest with the Telecom Secretary, subject to the Minister and the Cabinet.
“The Commission had been on a ventilator for years, and nobody will mourn it,” said KBS Sidhu. “Its one real safeguard, the Finance Member’s scrutiny of spectrum pricing, has been switched off along with it, and that should worry us. Spectrum is among the Union’s largest sources of non-tax revenue, and its price should never be settled without Finance concurrence on file.”
KBS Sidhu pointed to a second, older gap. The Commission’s part-time members came only from NITI Aayog and the Departments of Economic Affairs, Electronics and IT, and Industry. Home, Defence, Space, Civil Aviation, Shipping and the National Security Council Secretariat never had a seat. A single satellite broadband operator today must satisfy DoT, IN‑SPACe, TRAI and the security agencies. It must also comply with data-localisation and interception rules and meet the data protection regime, yet these authorities have no forum in which to consult one another.
His letter proposes five terms of reference for the Committee:
1. a mechanism for Finance concurrence on spectrum pricing;
2. a standing council of communications and digital regulators, bringing together TRAI, the Data Protection Board, CERT‑In, CCI, RBI and IN‑SPACe, with the DGCA, DG Shipping and the Coast Guard joining where spectrum meets safety;
3. a periodic audit of spectrum held by Government users, including Defence;
4. publication, with reasons, of policy directions issued by Ministries to regulators; and
5. a calendar for filling regulatory posts before they fall vacant.
He noted that the Data Protection Board, whose selection committee the Cabinet Secretary chairs, still had no Chairperson or Members as of August 2026.
KBS Sidhu cautioned against a single super-regulator. “Juvenal asked nineteen centuries ago who will guard the guardians,” he said. “A super-regulator only moves that question one floor up. India needs its regulators to watch one another, by law, and its Ministries to answer to Parliament for every direction they issue to a regulator.”
KBS Sidhu, a 1984-batch IAS officer of the Punjab cadre, secured All-India Rank 2 in the Civil Services Examination. He is a gold medallist in Electronics and Telecommunication Engineering from Thapar Institute, Patiala, where he taught Microwave Techniques before joining the service. He has also managed the flying clubs at Patiala and Amritsar. He retired in July 2021 as Special Chief Secretary, Government of Punjab, and is Founder-Editor of The KBS Chronicle, which carries his full analysis, “Quis Custodiet? Who Will Regulate India’s Digital Regulators”.
Chandigarh
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