The Hindu Business Line : PM's intervention sought on BSNL licence fee issue

THE Ministry of Communication has sought the intervention of the Prime Minister in getting full re-imbursement of licence fee and the Universal Service Obligation fund for Bharat Sanchar Nigam Ltd for undertaking rural telephony.

The Finance Ministry owes nearly Rs 3,500 crore to BSNL on account of licence fee reimbursement collected from the company over the last four years.

The Communication Ministry has cautioned that if the money was not released immediately then it would have a serious impact on the working of BSNL and the rural telephone targets for the year 2004-05 may not be met.

"The Ministry has communicated that if the long-standing due is not cleared quickly, then it will jeopardise BSNL's investment plan, especially rural telephony," said a senior official in the Ministry of Communication.

While the Department of Telecom had taken up the issue with the Finance Ministry a number of times, sources in the Communication Ministry said that the issue was taken up again last week by the Communication Minister, Mr Dayanidhi Maran, in a meeting with the Prime Minister and the Planning Commission.

Reimbursement of licence fee and spectrum charges was part of the package given to BSNL at the time of its corporatisation. The reimbursement was to be made till 2004, which was later extended to 2005.

While the Finance Ministry has reimbursed a part of the charges paid by BSNL, almost Rs 3,500 crore is still pending.

The Finance Ministry has also not cleared the amount for the USO fund. As against an allocated amount of Rs 3,700 crore for the last year, it has received only Rs 500 crore from the Finance Ministry.