The empowered group of ministers (EGOM) headed by the home minister P Chidambaram today asked the department of telecommunications (DoT) to work out a matrix, if the reserve price is brought down, how much spectrum fee should increase so that the government revenue remains same.

Next meeting of EGOM will take place on Friday, said DoT secretary. In today’s meeting, the EGOM decided on roll out obligations to be met by the telecom service providers.

TRAI has recommended a reserve price of Rs 18000 crore for 5 Mhz of spectrum in 1800 MHz band. The communications ministry wants to reduce it to Rs 12,000 cr. This is the reason that the EGOM today asked the Dot to do the new exercise so that it can build a case for reducing reserve price.

In its recommendations, TRAI said that the impact of new pricing on tariff would not be more than 5 paise per minute on customers. Telecom service providers oppose it and say that the impact will be up to Re one per minute.

Pranab Mukherjee as EGoM head had resigned as the former Finance Minister was nominated to contest the Presidential elections. Sharad Pawar was named as the new Chairman of the ministerial panel and a meeting fixed for July 2. But he later recused himself from the chairing the group fearing controversies.