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The Power Ministry has raised objections to bringing PowerGrid Corporation of India under Department of Telecom's new unified licensing regime. The Ministry has said that the proposed move will mean more pay out for Power Grid in terms of annual licence fee.
The DoT is planning to introduce a new unified licensing regime under which all companies that offer infrastructure to telecom companies will also have to start paying licence fee. PowerGrid offers its tower infrastructure to mobile companies. Currently, the PSU has an Infrastructure Provider category 1 (IP1) licence from the DoT, for which there is no annual revenue share.
It also has a National Long Distance and an Internet Services Provider's licence. Under the new regime, while long distance and Internet licence holders get automatic migration, there is no such provision for IP1 category players.
According to the Power Ministry, it will cost about Rs 15 crore if PowerGrid has to migrate to the new regime. “PowerGrid should be allowed to migrate to the unified licence regime without having to pay any additional entry fee,” the Ministry said in its response to the DoT proposal. The DoT had floated a Cabinet note seeking responses from various Ministries.
Even telecom tower companies are opposing the move to bring them under unified licence regime. Tower firms, including Viom, American Tower Corporation and GTL, had represented to the Telecom Ministry for a review. The Telecom Regulatory Authority of India was the first to suggest this policy.
The tower companies said the proposal by TRAI to force telecom infrastructure providers to migrate to a “Unified Licence” for which they should pay 8 per cent of revenue as licence fee was unjustified and retrograde.
The licence fee puts additional burden on the tower firms that are already reeling under the impact of 2G licence cancellation and poor 3G roll-out.
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