The newly reconstituted Empowered Group of Ministers (EGoM) on spectrum  headed by the Home Minister P Chidambaram will meet on July 12. This will be the first meeting after the Agriculture Minister Sharad Pawar resigned from the panel.

Apart from the decision on base or reserve price, the EGoM is expected to deliberate if telecom companies can mortgage spectrum or airwaves for seeking loans from the banks and financial institutions.

The decision taken by this EGoM will set the tone for telecom industry which is facing uncertainty and threat from foreign investors to exit from country if the decision does not suits them.

The high spectrum price has been vehemently opposed by telecom lobbies. The industry feels that high spectrum price will increase the tariff of telecom services in the range of 30 to 100%.

The lat time the EGoM on telecom met was on June 5, with  Pranab Mukherjee as its head. he resigned as Finance Minister 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.