Antrix-Devas deal

What is Antrix?
Antrix Corporation Limited was incorporated as a private limited company owned by Government of India, in September 1992 as a marketing arm of Indian Space Research Organization (ISRO) for promotion and commercial exploitation of space products, technical consultancy services and transfer of technologies developed by ISRO. Another major objective is to facilitate development of space related industrial capabilities in India.

What is Space Commission?

The Space Commission was established in India four decades back to formulate the countrys space policies and to oversee the implementation of the space programs. It is headed by Secretary for the Department of Space and has top officials from the Central government as its members.

What is Spectrum? What is S band?

Spectrum refers to the range of radio frequencies lower than 300 GHz. Thus spectrum is the collective term of the range of frequencies which are used for different radio transmission application. Radio transmission is generally regulated by the Governments across the world. The particular parts of the spectrum is sold or licensed to the other entities (both Public and Private) for various purposes like mobile telephony, Television broadcast etc. The frequencies and power levels in different frequencies are coordinated to ensure that there is no interference across services. S band is the part of spectrum which has the frequencies ranging from 1.55 GHz to 5.2 GHz. It is used in applications such as weather radar and some communication satellites.

The deal
The Antrix-Devas deal provides for the leasing to Devas of 90 per cent of the space segment capacity on two geostationary satellites, GSAT-6 and GSAT-6A for 12 years on a 24x7 hour a week basis, which would use up the entire S-band available with ISRO. As per the agreement of the deal, ISRO build two communication satellites i.e. GSAT-6 and GSAT-6A. These satellites were customized as per the needs of Devas. Devas envisaged to launch satellite digital multimedia broadcast (S -DMB) services that would be delivered to fixed, portable and mobile receivers. Also, this leased capacity was to be on a non -pre-emptible' basis, which means this capacity cannot be used by any other user for any other purpose.

The controversies in the deal

The following are the issues which have gained prominence and had made the deal questionable:

The Union Cabinet and Space Commission were not adequately informed about the deal and its implications. The proposal for seeking approval for GSAT-6 and GSAT-6A did not make any reference did not make any reference to their utilization for the Antrix Devas deal The compensation to be paid by Devas to ISRO under the deal was not adequate and it was much less than its actual worth.

The agreement was heavily loaded in the favor of Devas. Much of the upfront costs as well as the risk of building the customized satellites was to be incurred by ISRO. As per the preliminary estimates by the Comptroller and Auditor General the spectrum allotted to Devas could have been worth as much as Rs. 2 lakh crore. However the amount agreed in the deal to be paid by Devas was just about Rs 1500 crore that too over a period of 12 years.

No transparent and competitive process was adopted to choose the company for the sale of spectrum.

The other side

G. Madhavan Nair, who was chairman of ISRO and Antrix when the deal was signed, had denied the fact that government was unaware of the deal. He has alleged that several key people in the government, including Prime Minister Office, were aware of the deal at every stage. He also held that there are persons who are members of both Space Commission and the Antrixs board of directors. Thus as per his views its just a myth that Union Cabinet and Space Commission were unaware of the deal.

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