The Telecom Ministry has rejected the Telecom Regulatory Authority of India?s (TRAI) proposal for a lower licence fee of 6 per cent, as against up to 10 per cent currently, while accepting suggestions with regard to delinking of licences with spectrum, on mergers and acquisitions and reframing 800/900 MHz spectrum, according to news reports.
In February 2011, TRAI had made its recommendations on spectrum management and licensing framework recommending Rs 109.72 billion for a pan-India licence with 6.2 MHz spectrum and a one-time fee of Rs 45.71 billion for additional spectrum beyond 6.2 MHz.
The seven-member team of the Department of Telecommunications (DoT), involving officials from the technical and finance divisions, is understood to have given its report on the regulator?s recommendations to Kapil Sibal, Minister of Telecommunications and IT.
The DoT had earlier suggested a uniform licence fee of 8.5 per cent of adjusted gross revenue and the DoT team has adhered to its proposal while declining TRAI?s recommendations of uniform license fee of 6 per cent to avoid any revenue loss to the government.
The DoT Committee has also accepted the spectrum assignment with an upper limit of 6.2 MHz of GSM spectrum and 5 MHz of CDMA spectrum for all service areas other than Delhi and Mumbai, for which the upper limit will be 10 MHz. Further, DoT has also endorsed TRAI?s recommendations on merger and acquisition so that the market share of the resultant entity should not be greater than 30 per cent of the total subscriber base and the annual gross revenue in the service area subject to that the number of service providers should not fall below 6 in this area.
