Bharti Airtel may face Rs 650 cr penalty

DoT panel has proposed Rs 50 crore each for 13 telecom circles for licence norms violation

The government may slap Rs 650 crore penalty on Bharti Airtel Ltd for violating licence terms on the Subscriber Local Dialing (SLD) services.

A committee of the Department of Telecommunications (DoT) has recommended that penalty of Rs 50 crore each for 13 telecom circles where the company has violated the licence terms. The committee has sought views of the Minister of Communications and Information Technology Kapil Sibal on this.

According to a recent discussion, the committee has noted that Bharti Airtel has violated the national long-distance (NLD)/international long distance (ILD) licence conditions in 13 circles between 2000 and 2005.

Responding on the issue, a Bharti spokesperson said, “We are in compliance of all regulations. All relevant details have already been provided to the authorities.”

The committee has also alleged that Bharti Airtel routed national and international calls as local calls that had caused loss to the government exchequer and state-run Bharat Sanchar Nigam Limited (BSNL).

The committee also noted that Bharti Airtel had not stopped the service at least up to June 2005 even after specific directions from the DoT which was issued on June 20, 2003. In May 2005, The Telecom regulatory Authority of India (TRAI) had said that Bharti was liable to termination of its licences. But, the regulator did not recommended termination of Bharti’s licences as it would affect a large number of subscribers, , according to a recent note of the committee. TRAI had also favoured penalty.

After reviewing all the call detail records (CDRs) the committee has also noted that there were discrepancies.