NEW DELHI: All radio waves will be awarded through auction and will be delinked from licences, unlike the existing policy wherein spectrum comes bundled with the licences.

Under the new Telecom Policy approved by the Union Cabinet yesterday, there is proposal for liberalisation of spectrum, under which the telecommunication service providers will be allowed to offer any technology and service. 

The Policy is also an effort by the Government to overcome the negative publicity it received following the 2G spectrum scam and reports of a potential revenue loss of Rs 1.76 trillion to the exchequer by not auctioning the radio bandwidth.

The Policy had been placed before the Cabinet a week earlier but could not be taken up as Information and Broadcasting Ministry Ambika Soni felt that with spectrum going to the Information Technology Ministry, the issue of licences to radio and television may also be affected. There were fears that broadcasting may come under the jurisdiction of the IT Ministry, sources said.

Repositioning of the Mobile phone as an instrument of empowerment; "`Broadband For All" at a minimum download speed of 2 Mbps; convergence of Network, Services and Devices; and liberalisation of Spectrum are some of the salient points of the National Telecom Policy and Unified Licensing Regime for 2012.

The Policy effectively replaces the NTP of 1999 as it marks various departures from the existing policy.

NEW DELHI: The Human Resource Development Ministry has set up a task force to go into the large number of media schools mushrooming in different parts of the country, Information and Broadcasting Minister Ambika Soni said.

The task force will examine and identify issues related to the problem and suitably suggest remedial measures including setting up of an Accreditation Mechanism.

In her inaugural address at FOCUS 2012 on Digitisation, she said of the four Regional Centres of the Indian Institute of Mass Communication (IIMC) in Jammu and Kashmir, Kerala, Maharashtra and Mizoram, the two at Amravati (Maharashtra) and Aizawl (Mizoram) had become operational during 2011 with PG Diploma courses being offered in English Journalism. The other two Centres at Jammu and Kottayam (Kerala) were expected to become operational from the next academic session 2012-13.

The regional centres would not only ensure a balanced growth in availability of journalism schools across the country, they would facilitate the Government?s commitment towards inclusive growth.