In a written reply to the Lok Sabha, Milind Deora, Minister of State for Communications and IT has said that Reliance Communications and Reliance Telecom have been fined a total of Rs 54.9 million. This is because the two companies stopped rural telephone services during 2010-11, in violation of the Universal Services Obligation (USO) Fund agreement.
Deora added that the operators had cited commercial inviability as the reason for stopping these services. He also said that the penalty pertains to when the services were unavailable in these areas, as per the provision contained in the USO Fund Agreement with these companies.
The Department of Telecommunications (DoT) has also established a high level committee to consider all aspects of the issue and suggest appropriate action, if necessary under the unified access service licence condition.
As per the agreement, no penalty shall be payable in case of interruption of mobile services for a period of up to seven days in a quarter. In case the services are interrupted, a penalty of Rs 5 per day shall be imposed. However, if the services are interrupted for 45 days or more in a quarter, a penalty shall be payable for the whole quarter.
