The Comptroller and Auditor General of India on Friday said Reliance Jio Infocomm got undue advantage of Rs. 3,367.29 crore after the Department of Telecom allowed it to provide voice calling services using BWA spectrum under the new licensing regime.
Infotel Broadband, which had won pan-India spectrum in the 2010 BWA spectrum auctions, was later acquired by the Mukesh Ambani-led Reliance Industries. While Infotel had outbid most of the telecom operators, being an internet service provider (ISP) its licensing conditions did not allow it to offer voice services on this spectrum.
In 2013, the Department of Telecom allowed migration of ISP licensees with BWA spectrum to unified licence that would enable them to provide voice services using BWA spectrum. In its report, the CAG said Reliance Jio was the first to “take benefit of this scheme.”
“Reliance Jio Infocomm Limited (formerly, M/s Infotel)… paid Unified License entry fee of Rs. 15 crore and additional migration fee of Rs. 1,658 crore in August 2013. This migration, allowed at prices discovered in 2001, resulted in undue advantage of Rs. 3,367.29 crore to M/s Reliance Jio Infocomm,” the CAG said in its report.
As per CAG calculations, the value of licence as on August 2013, would have been at least Rs. 5,025.29 crore.
“The decision to grant permission to an ISP licensee with BWA spectrum to operate in the voice telephony space also helped the ISP to circumvent the restrictions imposed by their licence at the time of auction, which were known to the ISP at the time of bidding for the BWA spectrum,” the auditor stated.
This was mainly because there was a lack of due diligence of in auction of spectrum.
Reliance Jio, however, denied the charges, saying, “we have acquired all our spectrum at market prices through open and transparent bidding processes, the conditions for which were same for all bidders. Further, the DoT rules for procuring the relevant licence for services using BWA spectrum too were the same for all successful bidders.”