The Department of Telecommunications (DoT) has said that only 15 new licences are liable for cancellation, due to delayed network rollout, compared to 69 recommended by the Telecom Regulatory Authority of India (TRAI). DoT has thus sought the regulator’s views on the same.
According to R. Chandrasekhar, secretary, DoT, “Initially, we had identified 17 such cases. However, in two instances, it hinged on an interpretation related to rollout obligations. We had to identify when the zero day started, whether it was from the licence date or not. Now, it is clear that the zero date started from the date of spectrum allocation.?
In 2010, TRAI had recommended to DoT to cancel 69 telecom licences of five operators, including joint ventures of Telenor-Unitech, Etisalat-Swan and Sistema-Shyam.
Chandrasekar further added, “So far, we have sent 10 notices and the remaining five will be issued within this week. We have to follow the licence conditions. In this regard, we have written back to TRAI stating that on the basis of our assessment, there are 15 cases fit for sending notices for cancellation on account of delayed network rollout.?
In two cases, DoT found that spectrum was allocated only in a few districts of a circle. This made it difficult to interpret the terms and conditions of a licence which says that 10 per cent of a circle should be covered in the first year. In view of this, two cases have been dropped by DoT. Chandrasekhar also said that a few of these 15 cases would be common with those who were ineligible to get licences and separate notices would be sent to these players on both counts.
