The government issues notices to five operators for understating revenues

The government has issued notices to five telecom operators for understating revenues for the financial years 2006-07 and 2007-08.

These operators include Bharti Airtel, Reliance Communications (RCOM), Tata Teleservices Limited (TTSL), Vodafone India and Idea Cellular.

In a written reply to the Lok Sabha, Milind Deora, minister of state for communications and IT said that the total understated revenue stands at Rs 108.26 billion and the total licence fee demand raised including interest on the five operators is 18.41 billion.

He said that the government has sent show cause notices to RCOM for understating revenue of about 34.02 billion,  TTSL (Rs 31.56), Bharti Airtel (Rs 19.27 billion), Vodafone (Rs 14.94 billion) and Idea Cellular Rs 8.48 billion). According to him, the Kerala High Court, the Telecom Disputes Settlement Appellate Tribunal (TDSAT) and the Chennai High Court have stayed the demand for collecting the pending amount from the operators.