The Department of Telecommunications has provided a reprieve to Loop Telecom in the violation of the licence conditions and termed the penalty to be “nil”.
This was following the company shutting down its operations without following the due procedures under the licensing agreement.
The DoT had earlier decided to impose a ₹1,000-crore penalty on Loop Telecom for allegedly violating 2G spectrum licence norms by discontinuing operations in 20 circles.
The licensor also directed Loop Telecom to pay balance liquidated damages (LD) of ₹58.70 crore for failing of rollout obligations in 15 days. Loop Telecom’s total LD for rollout default stood at ₹66.50 crore, of which ₹7.80 crore has already been paid, it said, adding that this is across two phases of failure in rollout. In phase-I, the operator had failed to rollout services across 16 circles, including Andhra Pradesh, Assam, Kerala, Rajasthan and West Bengal.
In the second phase, the company did not complete rollout across 19 circles.
According to DoT’s rollout rules, in the first phase an operator has to rollout services in at least 10 per cent of the district headquarters and towns in one year where start-up spectrum was allocated.
In the second phase, the licensee has to cover at least 50 per cent of the district headquarters and towns within three years of allocation of start-up spectrum.