DoT may get Rs 50,000 crore from telecom policy change

The government may earn about Rs 50,000 crore from the new telecom spectrum policy, which seeks to delink licences from spectrum, if it decides to fix the price based on the figure discovered through last year’s 3G auction.

In a major policy shift, the government had yesterday decided not to bundle spectrum with telecom licences. At present, 2G licences come with 4.4 MHz start-up spectrum, which later goes up to 6.2 MHz.Telecom minister Kapil Sibal had said operators given licences in 2008 would have to pay market rates for start-up spectrum beyond 4.4 MHz. The older operators would have to pay market rates for spectrum beyond 6.2 MHz, he said.

According to sources, if the government decides to fix the spectrum price based on the 3G auction, the old operators will have to fork out Rs 17,000 crore for the excess spectrum beyond 6.2MHz, while the new operators will have to pay about Rs 30,000 crore for the additional spectrum over 4.4MHz. The figures have been calculated based on the 3G auction price, which had garnered about Rs 67,000 crore during the auction last year.

The Department of Telecommunications is waiting for recommendations from the Telecom Regulatory Authority of India. Last May, Trai had suggested linked the price of 2G spectrum to that discovered in 3G auctions. After that was criticised, Trai said it would revisit the issue and come out with fresh views.

Sibal was appointed in November last year after his predecessor, A Raja, resigned in the wake of allegations of irregularities in allotment of 2G spectrum. The case had led to Opposition protests and a logjam in Parliament.

There is, however, also a possibility of operators going to the telecom tribunal against the new spectrum allocation policy.