New Delhi, Nov. 28: The next few days could see the department of telecom penalise the new telcos who haven’t met their service rollout obligations. The government is considering a fine of `135 crore on older telecom players such as Bharti, Reliance Communications and Aircel. The penalty imposed on new players is likely to be much higher.
Recently, Trai had recommended cancellation of 69 licenses alloted to these players for failing to roll out their mobile services after getting spectrum in 2008-09.
However, as far as new players are concerned there is an overwhelming view in the government that they in some way should be made to pay for getting licenses cheap. A majority view in the government is that 2G license should not be cancelled as it will hurt the consumers, whose services will be terminated for no reason. This section is of the view that the difference between the price of 2G pan India license and 3G must be bridged so that there is no loss to the exchequer.
While the pan-India 2G spectrum in 2008 was given for a price of `1,650 crore, 3G spectrum netted a massive `16,751 crore in an auction early this year. In fact Vodafone had paid `11,618 crore for 3G spectrum for only nine circles.
There has been a huge public outcry over the cheap license given to new telecom firms in 2008 in a scam which cost the government `1.76 lakh crore. The Comptroller and Auditor General’s (CAG) in a report has castigated the former telecom minister, Mr A. Raja, for allocating 2G licenses to new players in a process which “ lacked transparency and appeared to have been done with the objective of favouring a few firms”.
After getting cheap licenses, these firms sold stake to foreign firms at huge valuation. This despite the fact that these new firms had no infrastructure on the ground. The government is facing heat from the opposition parties over the scam. They are demanding an investigation by the joint parliamentary committee (JPC) on the issue.