DoT panel wants penalties for violation by telcos

A Department of Telecommunications (DoT) committee has proposed separate quantum of penalties for violations of telecom licence conditions, with fines ranging from ₹1 lakh to ₹ 50 crore.

These fines were suggested taking into account various objectives set.

The violations were categorised as per gravity of the offence with a fine of ₹1 lakh for a warning, ₹1 crore for a minor breach, ₹5 crore for moderate, ₹20 crore for major and ₹50 crore for severe offences.

This scale of violation will ensure that while smaller violation come into record and do not go unnoticed, severe deviations with impact at organisational, industry or policy level are dealt with a deserving manner.

This will act as a “sufficient deterrent”, according to the proposal by the committee.

To decide the gravity that various generic violations fall under and how much penalty should be levied, these categories were further classified into company, commercial, network, security and equipment among others, it said. The committee has also made a category based on the type of action — such as comply, refrain and report — for which the violation is being considered. It would also look into the motive of the breach, whether it is for revenue gains or brand-building exercises, before penalising a telecom operator.

This is in contrast with the maximum of ₹50 crore penalty DoT levies in all cases of violation of regulations.

“While it may be legal to impose the maximum penalty of ₹50 crore, the fact that a penalty can be imposed up to ₹50 crore itself requires the DoT to analyse the nature of violation…,” the committee said.

“Not every violation should carry a penalty of ₹50 crore,” the committee which submitted its report, ‘Recommend the quantum of penalty for violations of terms and conditions of UASL’, added.

In 2011, the Telecom Commission directed the Department of Telecommunications to come up with appropriate norms for levying penalties for defaults.

The Telecom Commission, the highest decision-making body of the Communications Ministry, had suggested broad aspects such as the level of culpability, revenue loss to the exchequer, wrongful gains made by the operator and level deterrence required for quantum of penalties.

The DoT had made many attempts to “rationalise” the process of imposing fine during the previous years, but none of them were successful with reports never submitted or telecom commission rejecting the proposals.