Congress accuses BJP of covering up ₹45,000-crore telecom scam

The Congress on Thursday lobbed the ‘scam’ bomb on the BJP-led Central government, accusing it of burying a ₹45,000-crore telecom fraud exposed by the Comptroller and Auditor General (CAG) earlier this year.

At the centre of the Congress charge is a decision by former Telecom Minister Ravi Shankar Prasad to conduct a review of the audited books of six telecom operators after the CAG report was made public in March.

Randeep Singh Surjewala, In-charge, Communications, All India Congress Committee, said the review of the operators’ accounts was an attempt by the Centre to dilute the extent of the loss put out by the CAG and to delay the process of recovery.

He alleged that the Centre was bailing out the six telecom firms mentioned in the CAG report: Bharti Airtel, Vodafone, Reliance Communications, Idea Cellular, Tata Teleservices and Aircel India.

The CAG had initiated an audit of these six telcos for the period between 2006-07 and 2009-10 on the instructions of the Congress-led UPA government in 2011.

During this period, telecom operators did not have to pay any up-front price for spectrum but had to pay an annual licence fee and spectrum usage in the form of revenue share.

Dispute over calculation However, there was a disagreement between the telecom operators and the Department of Telecom on the elements to be included for the purpose of calculating the annual revenue.

While the operators argued that only revenue earned from offering telecom services should be taken into account, the DoT insisted that all income earned by the telcos, including those from sale of handsets or fixed deposits, should be included.

Even as the telecom operators challenged the DoT stand in various courts, the CAG looked at whether operators were paying revenue share as prescribed by the DoT or ‘under-reporting’ income in order to pay a lower licence fee. The Supreme Court, on April 17, 2014, permitted the CAG to audit the accounts.

The CAG then submitted its report and said the six companies had under-reported their revenue, technically known as Adjusted Gross Revenue (AGR), by ₹46,045.75 crore, leading to a loss of ₹12,488.93 crore to the Exchequer.

“Instead of immediately acting on these revelations reflecting a serious loss to the public exchequer, the Modi government has opted for an alternative revaluation of these figures by the Telecom Ministry through Chartered Accountants empanelled with them,” said Surjewala. “The only conclusion that can be drawn is that the Modi government wants to reduce the amount it has to recover if not spare the companies altogether. The intention is clearly mala fide. ”

DoT response Responding to the allegations, a DoT statement said: “Revenue assurance is the top priority of DoT. The government is determined to recover every rupee of underpaid amount with interest and penalty from every defaulting company in the minimum possible time.”

The Cellular Operators Association of India, the industry body representing large operators, including Airtel and Vodafone, said that the issue was being politicised when the matter is being dealt with legally.

According to the CAG’s report, the financial impact due to understatement of the adjusted gross revenue stood at: ₹3,728.54 crore for Reliance Communications; ₹3,215.39 crore for Tata Teleservices; ₹2,651.89 crore for Airtel; ₹1,665.39 crore for Vodafone; ₹964.89 crore for Idea and ₹262.83 crore for Aircel.