Five telecom companies understated Rs 14,814 cr revenue: CAG

Five private telecom service providers, including Tata Teleservices, Quadrant Televentures, Videocon Telecommunication, Telenor and Reliance Jio, have understated revenues of Rs 14,813.97 crore, a Comptroller and Auditor General (CAG) report said here on Tuesday.

The shortfall to the exchequer was Rs 2,578.83 crore.

"To sum up the verification of records of five PSPs (private service providers) by audit indicated total understatement of AGR (adjusted gross revenue) of Rs 14,813.97 crore for the period upto 2014-15 and consequent short payment of revenue share to Government of India to the tune of Rs 1,526.70 crore," the report stated.

It added: "The interest due on the short paid revenue share, for the period up to March 2016 was Rs 1,052.13 crore."

The report has shown short payments by companies of Licence Fee, Spectrum Usage Charges and interest to the tune of -- Tata Teleservices: Rs 1893.60 crore, Telenor: Rs 603 crore, Videocon: Rs 48.08 crore, Quadrant: Rs 26.62 crore and Reliance Jio: Rs 6.78 crore.

The CAG's findings are based on the audit of Tata Teleservices and Tata Teleservices (Maharashtra) Ltd from 2010-11 to 2014-15; Quadrant Televentures (2006-07 to 2014- 15); Videocon Telecom (2009-10 to 2014-15); Telenor group (2009-10 to 2014-15) and Reliance Jio Infocomm from 2012-13 to 2014-15.

The report said exit meetings were held with all the operators where the preliminary audit findings/observations were discussed in detail.

"Operator-wise draft audit reports were issued to DoT (Department of Telecommunications) with an advance copy to the operators concerned to elicit their views/ responses to the audit observations."

This report was prepared taking into account the reponses/replies received from the operators and the ministry.

While making the report the CAG had reached out to the management of the telecom companies to get their views, but in most cases said that the replies received were "not convincing".

--IANS

ag/hs/vm