The Space Commission today set the ball rolling for a top-level restructuring of Antrix Corporation, which is caught in the eye of a storm over its controversial twin-satellite deal with a private firm.
Space Commission, the country's apex space policy body, today set the ball rolling for a top-level restructuring of Antrix Corporation, ISRO's commercial arm which is caught in the eye of a storm over its controversial twin-satellite deal with a private firm.
The commission, at a meeting chaired by K Radhakrishnan, was apprised of the actions taken on terminating Antrix's deal with Devas Multimedia Private Limited which reportedly could have caused Rs two lakh crore loss to the national exchequer.
The Space Commission appointed a three-member search committee to identify a new full-time Chairman for Antrix, who will be separate from the ISRO Chairman.
Secretary, Department of Space is also the Chairman of Space Commission, ISRO and Antrix Corporation. Currently, K Radhakrishnan holds the four posts.
Addressing a press conference after the meeting, Radhakrishnan said it was decided to have a new Chairman-cum-Managing Director for Antrix considering its newly acquired 'mini ratna' status.
He said Antrix needed to be taken to the next level given the demand in the global market. However, he maintained that there was no complete restructuring of ISRO's commercial arm.
The decision comes as a review panel appointed by Prime Minister Manmohan Singh prepares to examine whether the Cabinet was misled by ISRO on the S-Band spectrum deal between Antrix and Devas Multimedia.
Radhakrishnan said ISRO had made public a detailed paper on the Antrix-Devas deal which was now under consideration of the Cabinet Committee on Security (CCS).
"I can share with you that currently the paper is under consideration of the Cabinet Committee on Security. We expect the CCS to look at this proposal in the coming days and when a decision is conveyed to us, I would inform you," he said.
In 2005, Antrix signed a contract with Devas Multimedia to build two satellites on which Devas would lease transponders in India. Bundled into the deal was 70 MHz of S-Band spectrum which was priced at Rs1000 crore.
In December 2009, ISRO ordered a review of the deal and subsequently the Space Commission recommended its annulment on July 2, 2010. But surprisingly Antrix continued to take the project forward. Antrix and Devas continued to meet on the
project as late January 2011.
Antrix representatives met Devas executives three times in the last eight months - the most recent meeting was earlier this month. Documents suggest that ISRO was going ahead to meet its contractual commitments.
Devas, in a statement earlier, said it was never told of the proposal to terminate the deal.
"Devas has never been informed by DOS/ISRO/Antrix at any time prior to February 8, 2011 that the Agreement was under review since December 8, 2009 and even to date we have received no official notices," it said.
On the contrary Devas was provided written confirmation that all required approvals had been obtained from the highest levels for giving effect to the Agreement and repeatedly assured that the delays in delivery of the satellite capacity were only on account of technical issues," it said.
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