Department of Telecommunications To Slap Rs1,594 Crore Penalties On Five Mobile Firms

The Department of Telecommunications country’s telecom licensor, is to slap penalties totaling Rs 1,594 crore on five mobile phone firms for underreporting of revenues, resulting in losses to the exchequer.

The notices would be send to Bharti Airtel, Idea Cellular, Vodafone India, Tata Teleservices, Tata Communications and Reliance Communications.

According to DoT estimates, Bharti Airtel would have to pay penalties of Rs 292 crore and Vodafone India of about Rs 254 crore. The penalties for Idea Cellular would be about Rs 113 crore, Tata Teleservices in the tune of Rs 273 crore, Tata Communications Rs 120 crore and Reliance Communications about Rs 551 crore. This includes interest and other related fines for the alleged violations.

Earlier this year, a DoT appointed panel endorsed the findings of external auditors, which said these operators had understated revenues by Rs 10,268 crore for assessment years starting from 2006 to 2008.The companies were issued showcause notices later. Telecom operators pay 6-10 percent of their annual revenues as licence fee and 2-6 percent as spectrum charges, and under reporting of revenues has resulted in losses to the exchequer.

The telecom companies had denied any wrongdoings TRAI in 2009 had asked DoT to conduct a special audit of financial accounts of these five telecom companies for the 2006-08 period. These companies were holding multiple licences – Unified Access Service Licence (UASL), National Long Distance (NLD), International Lonag Distance (ILD) and Internet Service Provider (ISP).

manoj srivastava July 1, 2012 at 3:40 pm

@manoj srivastava

manoj srivastava :
i love bsnl. but bsnl employee or policy makers are too slow.

manoj srivastava July 1, 2012 at 3:39 pm

i love bsnl. but bsnl employee or policy makers are too slow.

KRIS July 1, 2012 at 9:49 am

BSNL IS THE BEST NETWORK.PRIVATE LOOTERS ARE CHEATING THE PEOPLE AND CHEAT THE COUNTRY TOTALY

puneet sharma June 30, 2012 at 2:02 pm

that is why i dont advise any to go for any pvt operator. best is bsnl because atleast they are much clean regarding the money and tarriffs… service me problem ho to seedhe higher/highest authority ko complain kr k best services lo..as i do with mtnl always.

Abhay June 30, 2012 at 9:15 am

As expected and can be seen Reliance has to pay the biggest penalty of Rs. 551 crore almost the double of what others have to pay individually. Then Reliance Network says, “mere network mein hote to adjust karke minimum possible bill aata” in a TV add. This is the adjustment done by Reliance to show minimum possible revenue to the Govt. of India.

abhijith June 29, 2012 at 9:24 pm

Bsnl is good for me always . . . Some network problem then also its a tension free network . . Bsnl always best

prasad June 29, 2012 at 9:06 pm

@rupesh
i agree with u itz best…

Venky June 29, 2012 at 8:56 pm

BSNL will always sleep with their worst policy because their employees work without any do or die situation. Like in any government run sectors no rapid improvement will take place unless some one in a million guy comes and change for good. Learning is a better prospects for a company to improve their structure by reading from their current developments they are noy doing that. Our country is struggling from strong policy making so much confusion and not steady in their decisions our country needs a better leader.

rupesh June 29, 2012 at 8:16 pm

I love BSNL. It is better in every aspect. I am using BSNL for 5 years and have rarely called customer care for any deduction or problem.

Sathish June 29, 2012 at 5:59 pm

It’s not a fraud – it’s an attempt by DOT to penalise Private Operators …
However the PUBLIC will suffer as this will be recovered from the END USER – you and me.

SO all biggies except BSNL are fraud… Including TATA….

My view:

Yes, here all the private networks are trying to loot maximum money from your pocket.

Three years before i have understood about these things.

That’s why, am very proud to use BSNL Mobile and Landline with broadband…

I have never seen such kind of true network in India.

As per my knowledge, the entire policy maker’s and politicians are trying to
handicap our nation’s owned BSNL Network by doing something indirectly with help of
private networks lobbying…

So that BSNL has struggling to upgrade and expansion PAN India Level.
Generally Publics and customers are not aware of that; peoples also don’t worry about that, just they want services at cheapest rate.

End users / customers are always don’t worry about radition level in telecom BTS, indirect things.

BSNL Concern:

*BSNL have more accountability, Transparency in everything including P&L and
Balancesheet, billing, accounting, tariff, etc.,

*More Affordable with basic services.

*They don’t like to play with customer’s money!

*Low visibility and more customers, I think almost zero ads in last two years.

*BSNL only can provide the basic telecom connectivity like wireline broadband – landline connection in all the villages in India.

*The big thingin BSNL is fastest updation and upgrade their network, customer care services.

*BSNL running with its unfortunate handicap by policy makers/lobbying by private networks, these things you cannot see in private networks.

Anyway i hope finally BSNL will win the game!

This is the money making and commercial world.

These bubbles(private networks) will blast slowly!

Wait n See!

Venky June 29, 2012 at 5:59 pm

Best data and voice service in India is definitely Vodafone

pankaj saha June 29, 2012 at 5:54 pm

right but govt.not passed their tender proper time,after 2007 govt.passed 14.2million tender

rajesh kumar June 29, 2012 at 5:51 pm

what about aircel?… genuine network ah?

Raj June 29, 2012 at 5:39 pm

Bsnl is the only honest company Bt wid fraud govt employees..
who cheats bsnl money.. still bsnl do the honest to us..

Loop June 29, 2012 at 4:13 pm

very good DoT…

DB June 29, 2012 at 4:06 pm

Its not a fraud – its an attempt by DOT to penalise Private Operators …
However the PUBLIC will suffer as this will be recovered from the END USER – you and me.

Nilanjan June 29, 2012 at 3:49 pm