A committee of secretaries (COS) constituted to look at a relief package for the debt-laden telecom sector has been wound up, days after the Union cabinet allowed to defer payments due for spectrum bought via auctions until the end of March 2022, a source said.

While this effectively ends any further reliefs to Bharti Airtel and Vodafone Idea — who have been the worst hit by the Supreme Court judgment that favoured the government on the recovery of dues worth Rs 1.47 lakh crore — telecom secretary Anshu Prakash said the department of telecom (DoT) has not referred the issue of fixing the floor price for telecom tariffs to regulator Trai.

An absence of a floor price leaves the door open for another round of price wars even as Airtel, Vodafone Idea and Reliance Jio have said they would raise the rates for their subscribers. Three year ago, Jio had unleashed a brutal price war that has wreaked havoc on the incumbents.

The committee of secretaries under cabinet secretary Rajiv Gauba was last month constituted to examine “all aspects” of “financial stress” faced by the service providers and suggest measures to mitigate them.

The panel was formed shortly after the Supreme Court upheld the government’s position on the definition of AGR, which served as the basis for the calculation of the unpaid telecom fees and the spectrum usage charge.

The source said in the affirmative when asked if the CoS had been disbanded now. The CoS held several meetings to discuss the extent of help the government could offer and made its recommendations earlier this month.

Prakash said the Digital Communications Commission (DCC) will meet in the first half of December and could take up the issue of spectrum price for auction.

Asked if the DoT will make any reference to the telecom regulator over the floor price, Prakash said, “We don''t have any such plan.s”

He also said the telecom department will not intervene in recent announcement by operators to raise tariffs.