An Inter-Ministerial Group (IMG) set up to resolve the financial woes of the telecom sector has written to all telcos, individually, to share their income (opex, net profit, ARPU (average revenue per user), etc) of last three years.

Sources close to the development told BusinessLine that each company has been sent a format to compile the total income of their company along with other data, such as return on investment, debt and other liabilities to the Department of Telecommunications.

“We will study their financials (balance sheet) of last three years — 2014-15, 2015-16 and 2016-17,” an official said.

A telecom operator asking not to be named has confirmed receiving such a request.

The IMG was created to protect the interests of telecom companies and work on resolving their financial woes, as many of them have requested the government to give some rebates.

Meanwhile, various sources said Telecom Minister Manoj Sinha was likely to meet promoters of telecom service providers between June 22 and 23, to take stock of the current crisis in the sector. According to an official, Sunil Mittal, Chairman of Bharti Airtel, already met Sinha last week.

Sources said the meetings with the Telecom Minister have been fixed for later dates because an IMG meeting is scheduled between June 12 and 17.

The panel has called companies, including Reliance Communications, Tata Teleservices, Aircel and Sistema Shyam Teleservices, for a meeting on June 12, and others, including Airtel, Reliance Jio, Vodafone and Idea Cellular, on June 15.

As per industry estimates, the total debt for the sector is pegged at around ₹4.5 lakh crore, while revenues are around half of this.

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