The department of telecommunications (DoT) is planning to
impose penalties totaling Rs 1,594 crore on five mobile phone companies for
allegedly understating revenues and paying lower revenue share during fiscal
2006-07 and 2007-08.

According to the department, Reliance Communications will have to pay penalties
Rs 551 crore while for Bharti Airtel, it will be Rs 292 crore. The penalty for
Vodafone works to Rs 254 crore.

Idea Celluar need to pay about Rs 113 crore, Tata Teleservices at Rs 273 core
and Tata Communications at about Rs 120 crore, according to a report in
Economic Times.

The telecoms department has studied the special audit reports of these
companies and concluded that were discrepancies in the revenues reported by
these telcos.

In 2009, the government had ordered external audits on the books of all leading
private cellphone companies to make sure that they had correctly reported and
shared revenue with it.

Since telecom companies pay 6-10 percent of their annual revenue as licence fee
and 2-6 percent as spectrum usage charges, reporting lower revenue brings down
the component they have to share with the government.

The telecoms ministry will issue showcause notices to these companies after
getting the go ahead from communications minister Kapil Sibal.

The minister is likely to give his consent on January 13 when he meets telecoms
secretary R Chandrasekhar to study the showcause notices that have been
prepared.

The DoT has also got the go ahead from the law ministry. It had sent the draft
showcause notices to the law ministry, which in turn has said it has no
objections to it, while also adding that its vetting was not required.

By Telecomlead.com Team
[email protected]