Indian government ministers and regulators have vowed to punish those deemed to have profited from the country’s 2G licensing scandal, raising the possibility that those who were awarded the contentious licences in 2008 could have them revoked. “Actions will be taken against any operator who does not meet our telecom regulation and [who did not implement the] full rollout of services,” Sachin Pilot, India’s junior telecoms minister, told the Financial Times on Friday. A day previously the Telecom Regulatory Authority of India (TRAI) asked the telecoms ministry to cancel the 62 regional licences given to five companies in 2008, which includes licences now held by international operators such as UAE’s Etisalat, Norway’s Telenor and Russia’s Sistema. The hardline approach has also been adopted by Indian prime minster, Manmohan Singh (pictured), who has faced personal criticism for failing to address the issue earlier. “If any wrong thing has been done by anybody, he or she will be brought to book,” Singh told a conference in New Delhi Friday, notes Bloomberg. Singh’s telecoms minster, Andimuthu Raja, resigned over the issue earlier in the week.

Critics have argued that the sell-off of 2G licenses in 2008 – which were reportedly conducted on a ‘first come, first served basis’ without competitive bidding or an auction – could have cost the county as much as US$40 billion in lost revenue. The scandal could have wide-ranging implications for new Indian operators such as Telenor’s Uninor, which are already struggling to compete in a fiercely competitive market. Telenor paid US$1.1 billion for a 67 percent stake in the operator via a joint venture with local partner Unitech, but the transaction occurred after Unitech had acquired the licence. Telenor’s head of Asia, Sigve Brekke told the Wall Street Journal Friday that the Norwegian group remained committed to making its Indian venture work, but warned that the operation would not generate positive cash flow until 2014, slightly later than earlier indicated.