What the DoT would do next is unclear - yet it does not have many options. The government's choice It could agree to operators' demands, or come to some sort of compromise. Yet it cannot expect an understanding response from private providers if it continues to ignore blithely their own concerns - such as the need for immediate constitution of an independent telecom regulator , for which an Presidential ordinance has lapsed and legislation remains pending. This compromise and getting on, for the DoT, would be the most attractive way out. It is the only practical way of laying a hand on the money from licence fees, although this will become more of a concern to the Finance Ministry as the DoT will never actually get to use it.
Potential bidders are simply exhausted.
Besides, most of the first round bids are now widely thought to be too high, unless the DoT behaves itself on the matter of operational and interconnect agreements, of which there is no guarantee. And more objective methods of selecting DoT franchisees are likely to face the same inertia as as tenders for independent, competing licensees. There is one penultimate, very cynical option for the DoT - to do nothing. This would be an admission of the government's greed for licence revenues having absolutely overridden the country's need for investment, and would suit all those in the DoT who benefit, as did, allegedly, Mr Sukh Ram, from a monopsony's power to extort bribes from equipment suppliers. This relatively free competition will need a major shift in the DoT's mindset, in particular a return to the recognition that the need of 900 million Indians for better communications surpasses that of the government for licensing revenue.