Comments
The government’s revenue mop-up from the telecom sector fell by about 22 per cent in the 2017-18 fiscal, owing to a decline in the earnings of service providers from sale of services, Parliament was informed on Friday.
The government collects licence fee and spectrum usage charge (SUC) as a percentage of revenue earned by telecom service providers from the sale of telecom services. “The adjusted gross revenue (AGR)-based SUC receipts have declined due to declining AGR,” Union Telecom Minister Manoj Sinha said in a written reply to a question in the Rajya Sabha.
In 2017-2018, the industry’s AGR declined by 18.62 per cent to ₹1,30,844.9 crore from ₹1,60,787.9 crore in the previous fiscal.
This resulted in lower licence fees and SUC for the government.
The government’s revenue from licence fee declined 18.12 per cent to ₹10,670.6 crore in 2017-18, from ₹13,032.9 crore in 2016-17.
Drop in SUC
The SUC, which is calculated based on the quantum of radiowaves allocated to mobile operators, dipped by over 29 per cent to ₹4,983.75 crore in 2017-18 from ₹7,048 crore in the preceding financial, according to data shared by the telecom Minister.
Comments
COMMENT NOW
Comments
Comments have to be in English, and in full sentences. They cannot be abusive or personal. Please abide by our community guidelines for posting your comments.
We have migrated to a new commenting platform. If you are already a registered user of TheHindu Businessline and logged in, you may continue to engage with our articles. If you do not have an account please register and login to post comments. Users can access their older comments by logging into their accounts on Vuukle.