M A I N   N E W S

‘Relief to telcos in ’99 caused Rs 43,000-cr loss’
Tribune News Service

New Delhi, November 23
In a first-of-its-kind revelation that would give the Congress-led UPA government some foothold in the 2G Spectrum allocation scam, the Telecom Ministry has said the national exchequer lost over Rs 43,523 crore because of relief given to telecom companies by the BJP-led NDA government in 1999.

The NDA had moved telecom companies from fixed licence fee regime to revenue-sharing model, which resulted in decline in collection of licence fee, the government said in a written reply in Lok Sabha by Minister of State for Communication and IT Milind Deora.

He said that as per fixed licence fee, operators would have paid Rs 58354.62 crore but fee collection from them over their licence period has been Rs 14830.70 crore due to the migration package. Thus, the impact on licence fee collection due to Migration Package offered vide NTP (New Telecom Policy) 99 for mobile as well as basic service providers is Rs 43523.92 crore.

In his reply the minister said, "The Migration Package was a one-time measure to migrate the licences to NTP-99 Regime. Subsequent to this, a new category of licence — UAS Licence — was introduced and most basic and CMTS licencees, except BSNL and MTNL, migrated to UAS Licence," Deora said.

BJP-led Opposition parties have had the Congress-led UPA alliance on the backfoot for the past few months on 2G Spectrum allocation in 2008, which reportedly cost the national exchequer a loss of Rs 1.76 lakh crore.

The Unified Access Service Licences (UASL) given then had allowed operators to provide all telecom services on a single licence instead of obtaining different ones for mobile phones, landlines, STD, ISD, Internet and others.

Incidentally, the Comptroller and Auditor General in its 2000 report had also noted that telecom companies with mobile and basic telephone licences in metros and other circles had defaulted in payment of licence fee to the government, leading to mounting dues.

Govt’s Take

• The NDA had moved telecom companies from fixed licence fee regime to revenue-sharing model, which resulted in decline in collection of licence fee
• Licence fee collected dropped from Rs 58354.62 crore to Rs 14830.70 crore