There’s more grief ahead for 2G mobile operators whose licences were cancelled by the Supreme Court. The Department of Telecom is readying a fresh demand notice for Rs 2,764 crore from nine operators for being allowed to continue services post the Supreme Court order of February 2, 2012.

According to an internal DoT note seen by Business Line , Sistema Shyam will have to pay Rs 463 crore and Unitech Wireless Rs 513 crore. Although the note pegs Rs 605 crore against Etisalat DB and Rs 389 crore against Loop Telecom, they may end up paying much less because they had switched off their networks within a few months of the court’s order. The DoT has firmed up the amount assuming that all the operators continued to offer services till March 15, 2013.

The Supreme Court had directed the DoT to collect this fee from all companies that continued to offer services after the February 2 order. Operators such as Sistema Shyam and Unitech Wireless continued to offer services to avoid disruption in services to consumers.

For example, Sistema Shyam, which offers mobile services under the MTS brand, continues to hold onto its old licences. The company won spectrum in eight circles in the auction held earlier this month and is awaiting fresh licences from the DoT. In the other 13 circles, it plans to continue services for another few weeks before shutting down operations to allow subscribers to migrate to another operator. Norway’s Telenor too kept its operations alive so that it could participate in the November auctions.

These players were able to sustain their operations because the DoT approached the court seeking more time to cancel the licences. Although the initial order was to scarp the licences by August 2012, the DoT kept seeking extensions till the auctions were held. While agreeing to the extensions, the Supreme Court told the DoT to collect a fee from the telcos based on the reserve price fixed for the auction.

None of the telecom companies offered to comment officially on the new charges but said, on conditionof anonymity, that they were being treated unfairly. “On the one hand, the DoT wants to collect a fee for continuing services post the order to cancel licences and on the other, it is planning to impose a penalty on companies that closed operations immediately,” said one of the affected players.

The DoT is separately slapping a penalty on some companies for shutting down services without notice. The fine could work out to Rs 250 crore for STel and Rs 700 crore for Loop Telecom.

No notice

According to the DoT, both these players had shut down services without giving notice.

In addition to this, the DoT has raised a demand notice on other players, including Rs 687 crore against Etisalat DB, for what it termed breach of licence conditions, including failure to meet rollout obligation.

Some of the players, including STel and Loop, had filed a petition in court challenging the penalty notices sent by the DoT.

> thomas.thomas@thehindu.co.in

Related Topics