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Vodafone India has urged the Empowered Group of Ministers (EGoM) to accept the telecom regulator’s recommendations for a uniform Spectrum Usage Charges regime. It has also sought setting the charge at 3 per cent of the average gross revenues for the forthcoming auctions.
The request comes ahead of the EGoM – a ministerial panel headed by Finance Minister - meeting on November 22. In July, the GSM operator offered to pay Rs 4,000 crore and 3 per cent SUC to extend licences of Delhi, Mumbai and Kolkata circles.
The licences of these circles expire in 2014.
“Vodafone also fully supports and endorses the TRAI recommendation that the Government take an in-principle decision to allow spectrum trading and announce this prior to commencement of the forthcoming auctions, preferably as part of the auction notice inviting applications,” it said in a letter to Finance Minister P Chidambaram on Tuesday.
The company, the Indian unit of British telecom major Vodafone Plc, has wanted the ministerial panel to correct the “anomalies and inherent deficiencies” in the policy.
Vodafone India has also submitted that the existing 900 MHz used by operators should not be auctioned. Instead, a reasonable price for its extension should be set after mutual discussions.
Furthermore, the GSM operator also submitted that the reserve price of 1800 MHz spectrum (to be auctioned as per the Supreme Court order) as recommended by TRAI was still on the higher side.
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