The Department of Telecommunications (DoT) has finalised a penalty demand of over Rs 1.50 billion on established operators for not rolling out their networks as per stipulated timelines.
In 2010, DoT had issued 119 notices to new operators for slipping on network roll-out obligations and had levied penalties on them. It has collected over Rs 3 billion from them in penalties.
Earlier, DoT had proposed a penalty of Rs 4.77 billion (later reduced to Rs 1.35 billion) on old operators, including Bharti airtel, Tata Teleservices Limited, Reliance Communications , Aircel and others for missing roll out obligations.
The penalty was lowered after the operators said that roll-out obligations should come into effect from the date of allotment of spectrum and not from the date of issuance of licences.
They also claimed that statutory clearances came through late, leading to cascading delays in the roll-out of services.
