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The Empowered Group of Ministers (EGoM) on telecom plans to once again approach the attorney general of India for endorsing its proposal to charge existing operators auction determined price for the 2G spectrum held by them.
Earlier, the EGoM headed by P Chidambaram, Minister of Finance recommended to the government that the GSM operators should pay a fee for spectrum held beyond 4.4 MHz, whereas CDMA operators should pay a fee for spectrum in excess of 2.5 MHz.
As per EGoM?s calculation, existing operators may collectively end up paying about Rs 270 billion to the government as licence fee.
Earlier, on October 5, 2012, Goolam Essaji Vahanvati, the attorney general of India had expressed a view contrary to that taken by the Department of Telecommunications? and EGoM. He has suggested that that only existing GSM operators like Bharti Airtel, Idea Cellular and Vodafone India should pay the auction-determined fee for the additional spectrum and the fee should be charged retrospectively from July 2008.
The final decision on the spectrum fee to be paid by the existing operators for excess spectrum held by them is going to be taken by the cabinet in its meeting on October 16, 2012.
