Telcos' licence fee till Jan at Rs 7,606 cr

The telecom operators have paid Rs 7,605.61 crore in licence fees till January, while they paid Rs 3,498 crore as spectrum charges for this fiscal, Minister of State for Communications and IT Gurudas Kamat said told the Lok Sabha today.

He added telecom operators do not pay taxes to the Department of Telecom (DoT) as no taxes are levied by the DoT. However, the rate of percentage of revenue is paid as levies by the operators.

Telecom operators paid Rs 1,957.28 crore in 2006-07, Rs 2,884.17 crore in 2007-08 and Rs 3,248.57 crore in 2008-09 as spectrum charges. They paid Rs 7,016.59 crore in 2006-07, Rs 8,826.45 crore in 2007-08 and Rs 9,759.81 crore in 2008-09 as licence fee.

In a separate reply, Kamat said the shareholding pattern in Datacom Solutions as on December 12, 2007 was Jumbo Techno Services (25.99 per cent), Oswal Fertilisers and Chemicals (10 per cent), Videocon Industries (10 per cent), Videocon International Electronics (54 per cent) and others (0.01 per cent).

Kamat said the DoT had received a complaint regarding non-disclosure of shareholding pattern by the company, while acquiring the UAS lincence.

Kamat said the government is funding Rs 182 crore through Sports Ministry and state-run telecom operator MTNL is further negotiating to receive Rs 30 crore from the home ministry and Rs 73 crore from the Organising Committee of Commonwealth Games 2010.

These funds would be utilised for providing communications facilities and services. It will set up a Games Data Network for running applications like ticketing, Internet and entertainment, hospitality etc, security data network for security agencies like the Delhi Police, and Broadcast Video Network.