The empowered group of ministers on 3G spectrum has endorsed the Ministry of Communications and IT’s proposal to increase the spectrum usage charge by up to 2 percent.

The empowered group of ministers on 3G spectrum has endorsed the Ministry of Communications and IT’s proposal to increase the spectrum usage charge by up to 2 per cent. This move is likely to result in the operators paying a higher combined additional levy of Rs 20 billion. The government has proposed an increase of 1 per cent for up to 8.2 MHz of GSM and 5 MHz of CDMA spectrum, beyond which there will be a 2 per cent increase.