Telecom services providers owe the government a whooping Rs.39,800 crore plus in terms of outstanding amount for spectrum usage charges, licence fees, penalties and interest, according to Minister of State for Telecom and IT Milind Deora.
Public sector telecom operator BSNL owes the government the maximum amount in terms of total outstanding spectrum charges (Rs 6,979.59 crore), and total outstanding licence fee, including interest and penalties (Rs 3,044.91 crore), as per the official data. Mr. Deora said notices had been issued to the telecom service providers after completion of assessment to recover outstanding dues.
BSNL is followed by Bharti Airtel, which owes the government Rs.6,075.28 crore as spectrum charges and Rs.2,803.50 crore as licence fee, including interest and penalties.
Vodafone and Idea owe Rs.4,477.19 crore and Rs.2,206.09 crore as spectrum charges, respectively, while their outstanding in terms of licence fee, including interest and penalties, stood at Rs.459.50 crore and Rs.425.93 crore, respectively. On the other hand, CDMA services provider Reliance Communication and Tata Teleservices owe Rs.2,004.35 crore and Rs.1,400.43 crore as spectrum charges, respectively. In terms of licence fee, including interest and penalties, Reliance Comm- unication’s outstanding stood at Rs.1,861.07 crore, while that of Tata Teleservices stood at Rs.354.31 crore. The Minister, while replying to a query in the Lok Sabha, added that the Department of Telecom (DoT) was not considering any proposal to reduce penalties on erring service providers.
