The Department of Telecom is going after telecom companies to recover dues of Rs 1,632 crore in the form of licence fee not paid over the past 10 years.

There are more than 20 companies which have not paid the dues over the years of which Rs 1,311 crore is pending for about eight years. The problem in these cases is that most of the companies have become defunct or are fighting a legal battle with the DoT.

Radio paging firms

For example, there are a bunch of radio paging companies, including Punwire Mobile Communications and Matrix paging, which have been liquidated and licences surrendered. Though the DoT has sent a number of reminders to the official liquidator, there has been no response.

There is also the case of Koshika telecom, whose mobile licences were cancelled but an appeal against the arbitration award is pending judgment by the Delhi High Court. Idea Cellular, Reliance Communications, MTNL, Aircel and Tata Communications are also in the list of defaulters.

The DoT is going after these dues as its revenues from licence fee have declined due to fall in the overall revenues earned by the operators. While the licence fee collected during second quarter of 2009-10 was Rs 2,592 crore, the collection during second quarter of 2010-11 was Rs 2,602 crore – an increase of 0.39 per cent but when compared to the collections made during the first quarter of 2010-11, there is a nominal decrease of 0.62 per cent.

“Though there is an increase in the number of subscribers for every licences operator, yet due to competition and reduction in tariff there is decrease in the gross and adjusted revenues resulting in marginal growth in licences fee,” said an internal DoT note put up for consideration of the Telecom Commission.

Fresh reminders

DoT sources said that fresh reminders and requests will be sent to various legal bodies and authorities which are looking into the various cases to expedite the process so that the dues may be collected from these companies.

The DoT is also sending penalty notices to companies for failing to meet roll-out conditions. Already about Rs 300 crore has been collected. The Communications and IT Minister, Mr Kapil Sibal, has told the DoT to recover all penalty amounts on account of roll out conditions by the end of the month.

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