Govt to get around Rs 23,000 crore from one-time spectrum fee

07 Mar 2013 Evaluate

The government is expected to get around Rs 23,000 crore by levying one-time spectrum fee on existing operators for holding radiowaves beyond a prescribed limit. The government had issued notices to telecom companies including Bharti Airtel, Vodafone and BSNL, MTNL and Idea Cellular for the excess spectrum they hold beyond the prescribed limit. The operators were given the option to give up spectrum beyond 4.4 MHz if they did not wish to pay the charges.

State-owned BSNL will have to pay around Rs 6,912 crore, Bharti Airtel - Rs 5,201 crore, Vodafone - Rs 3,599 crore, MTNL - Rs 3,205 crore and Idea Cellular - Rs 1,882 crore. To be more precise, the government is likely to get Rs 4,251.83 crore from retrospective charges, Rs 18,925.82 crore from prospective charges. In all Rs 23,177.65 crore is expected from levy of one-time spectrum fee.

Earlier, for pan-India operations, telecom firms were given 4.4 MHz spectrum with license for Rs 1,658 crore and later were permitted to get another 1.8 MHz on fulfillment of certain subscriber-base criteria. However, in November, the government decided that the telecom operators will have to pay charges for holding spectrum above 6.2 MHz retrospectively, for the period of July 2008 to January 1, 2013. For spectrum above 4.4 MHz, they would have to pay for the remaining period of their licences starting January 1, 2013.

There is no respite for the telecom operators, being under the anvil from time and again. However given the option to forfeit the spectrum beyond 4.4 MHz if they did not wish to pay the charges, the operators have reluctantly agreed to pay.

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