The Department of Telecom may impose a penalty on Reliance Communications for switching off a few of the base stations it had rolled out as part of the Universal Services Obligation scheme, according to news reports.
RCOM had signed the agreement with the USO fund for rolling out mobile network in unconnected villages. But the company allegedly switched off some of the network sites on grounds that it was unviable to operate the services. DoT has now decided that a penalty specified under the USO scheme should be imposed on the company for shutting down some of the base station without any notice.
While DoT wanted to impose the penalty as per the provisions of the Unified Access licence, the Kapil Sibal, Minister of Telecommunications and IT has told DoT to collect the fine under the provisions of the USO agreement. This may mean a lower penalty because under the unified access licence, the company would have had to pay Rs 500 million as fine, while under the USO scheme the penalty works out to be only Rs 500 for each day and deduction in USO subsidy on a pro-rate basis.
Reliance has since switched on the all the sites despite claims of high cost of operation.
