Raja asks FM to refund BSNL, MTNL money

Jul 06, 2010 |

New Delhi

Pitching for telecom PSUs BSNL and MTNL, the telecom minister, Mr A Raja, has approached the finance minister, Mr Pranab Mukherjee, seeking reimbursement of the Rs 29,598.33 crore paid by them for spectrum.

“BSNL is the only service provider giving connectivity to the far-flung rural areas. The service rendered by BSNL in the rural areas of the country cannot be replicated,” Mr Raja said in a letter to the finance minister.
Upon the discovery of the price for 3G and Broadband Wireless Access (BWA) spectrum, BSNL and MTNL recently paid Rs 18,500.38 crore and Rs 11,097.97 crore, respectively. “Both BSNL and MTNL have made a desperate request for reimbursement of the charges paid,” Mr Raja said.
The finance minister had raised over Rs 1,06,262 crore from sale of spectrum for both 3G and BWA services. This would help government cut it’s fiscal deficit by one percentage point. This spectrum had been allotted to BSNL and MTNL for all circles. Both PSUs were not required for the auction. — PTI

Post new comment

<form action="/comment/reply/20567" accept-charset="UTF-8" method="post" id="comment-form"> <div><div class="form-item" id="edit-name-wrapper"> <label for="edit-name">Your name: <span class="form-required" title="This field is required.">*</span></label> <input type="text" maxlength="60" name="name" id="edit-name" size="30" value="Reader" class="form-text required" /> </div> <div class="form-item" id="edit-mail-wrapper"> <label for="edit-mail">E-Mail Address: <span class="form-required" title="This field is required.">*</span></label> <input type="text" maxlength="64" name="mail" id="edit-mail" size="30" value="" class="form-text required" /> <div class="description">The content of this field is kept private and will not be shown publicly.</div> </div> <div class="form-item" id="edit-comment-wrapper"> <label for="edit-comment">Comment: <span class="form-required" title="This field is required.">*</span></label> <textarea cols="60" rows="15" name="comment" id="edit-comment" class="form-textarea resizable required"></textarea> </div> <fieldset class=" collapsible collapsed"><legend>Input format</legend><div class="form-item" id="edit-format-1-wrapper"> <label class="option" for="edit-format-1"><input type="radio" id="edit-format-1" name="format" value="1" class="form-radio" /> Filtered HTML</label> <div class="description"><ul class="tips"><li>Web page addresses and e-mail addresses turn into links automatically.</li><li>Allowed HTML tags: <a> <em> <strong> <cite> <code> <ul> <ol> <li> <dl> <dt> <dd></li><li>Lines and paragraphs break automatically.</li></ul></div> </div> <div class="form-item" id="edit-format-2-wrapper"> <label class="option" for="edit-format-2"><input type="radio" id="edit-format-2" name="format" value="2" checked="checked" class="form-radio" /> Full HTML</label> <div class="description"><ul class="tips"><li>Web page addresses and e-mail addresses turn into links automatically.</li><li>Lines and paragraphs break automatically.</li></ul></div> </div> </fieldset> <input type="hidden" name="form_build_id" id="form-7de82598e8e1dff8a5b0a6ca1d920c1b" value="form-7de82598e8e1dff8a5b0a6ca1d920c1b" /> <input type="hidden" name="form_id" id="edit-comment-form" value="comment_form" /> <fieldset class="captcha"><legend>CAPTCHA</legend><div class="description">This question is for testing whether you are a human visitor and to prevent automated spam submissions.</div><input type="hidden" name="captcha_sid" id="edit-captcha-sid" value="88691350" /> <input type="hidden" name="captcha_response" id="edit-captcha-response" value="NLPCaptcha" /> <div class="form-item"> <div id="nlpcaptcha_ajax_api_container"><script type="text/javascript"> var NLPOptions = {key:'c4823cf77a2526b0fba265e2af75c1b5'};</script><script type="text/javascript" src="http://call.nlpcaptcha.in/js/captcha.js" ></script></div> </div> </fieldset> <span class="btn-left"><span class="btn-right"><input type="submit" name="op" id="edit-submit" value="Save" class="form-submit" /></span></span> </div></form>