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There have been irrefutable reasons for turning the government's Department of Telecommunications into a corporation. Actually, bureaucrats were busy preparing for a life after the big crossing.

Then suddenly, out of the blue, just like that and without warning, DoT Secretary Anil Kumar announced on Saturday that the "corporatisation" plan has been shelved!

Now that narrowed as many eyes as it raised eyebrows.

T O D A Y

• It's all politics! • Satyam overhaul • Poor use of IT • Maharashtra's IT year

Gargantuan is a small word to describer DoT. It has, directly or indirectly, set up the entire telephone network in the country.

Naturally, daily operational logistics were becoming too messy. One of the several solutions suggested was to turn the government department into a corporation.

And why not? After all, two significant government corporations already report to it: The overseas telecommunications giant Videsh Sanchar Nigam Limited and the Mahanagar Telephone Nigam Limited.

Then, among other things, the Bharatiya Janata Party acceded to the throne with the promise of converting DoT into a corporation. (It's all there in the ruling coalition's bible, the National Agenda for Governance).

Former minister of communications Sushma Swaraj was so keen on the agenda that she had actually drawn a road map that her generals in the ministry could follow when setting out on the "corporatisation" task.

She had maintained that "corporatisation" was also necessary to give DoT flexibility in operations and tariff structure so that it could take on the private sector effectively.

But Kumar too has reasons for the about-face. In one unblinking breath he got it off this chest: "The government has to balance the need for high returns with increasing teledensity and spreading out into rural areas," he told an Associated Chambers of Commerce and Industry workshop in New Delhi.

If this is 180 degrees of deception to you, count a few for power politics and the rest for the Sangh Parivar, the ideological nanny to the King.

When Swaraj was the minister, two labour unions opposed to DoT's transformation had made their sentiments clear to her.

That fact gains meaning when the two unions are the Bharatiya Mazdoor Sangh and the Bharatiya Telecom Employees Federation.

Both are cousins of the BJP and vocal supporters of common parent, the Rashtriya Swayamsevak Sangh.

Swaraj had braved the unions but in her absence Minister of State for Communications Kabindra Purkayastha and Kumar must have felt the strain.

On Saturday, a day before Jagmohan stepped into office as the new communications minister, Kumar announced that the government is abandoning the initiative to make a corporation out of DoT.

He reasoned "We have to sort out the issues concerning licence terms, the complexity arising out of convergence of technologies, the norms for dealing with old and new licensees, separation of the network from the service and enhancing the efficiency and consumer orientation of DoT. Only then can we arrive at a model most appropriate for India that serves the long-term interests of the industry and economy."

Sounds like indefinite suspension of all initiatives to make DoT a corporation. Doesn't it?

Let us remember 'Well begun is just that, well begun.'

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