Telecom Lead India: The Department of Telecommunications (DoT) has slapped Rs 995 crore notice on Vodafone India for not paying all the spectrum charges which were due for years between 2008-09 and 2011-12.
DoT has said it will take action if Vodafone India does not pay by 20 February, according to the notice issued on 5 February.
As per DoT’s calculations, Vodafone India has to pay up roughly Rs 14.8 crore in spectrum charges, penalties and interest for 2008-09, Rs 12.25 lakh for 2009-10, Rs 731 crore for 2010-11 and Rs 132 crore for 2011-12.
DoT is said to have sent similar notices to other GSM operators and the total sum DoT is looking at recovering around Rs 4,000 crore from all telecom operators.
DoT had conducted special audit on the books of telecom operators, checking out if there has been any under reporting of gross revenues (AGR) which is the basis for calculating spectrum charges.
DoT insists that insignificant revenue generators such as scrap sale and rentals be included in the calculation of AGR.
The DoT notice will be a blow on telecom operators including Vodafone India. Vodafone India has clocked 9 percent increase in revenue to £1.125 billion in Q3 2012-13. TRAI’s new regulations affected Vodafone. Subscriber verification regulations were changed, leading to decline in gross customer additions which resulted in net customer disconnections. The company lost 5,189,000 mobile users in Q3.
