Accruals from licence fee, spectrum charges slide during FY17

Accruals from licence fee payments in the telecom sector have fallen from Rs 3,975.6 crore in the first quarter to Rs 3,450 crore in the third quarter of the current fiscal, the Parliament was informed today.
Licence fee collections stood at Rs 3,975.67 crore during the first quarter, Rs 3,584.04 crore in the second quarter and Rs 3,450.13 crore in the third quarter of 2016-17, Telecom Minister Manoj Sinha said in a written reply in Lok Sabha.
Accruals from spectrum usage charges have shown a similar trend. The collections on account of spectrum usage charges were pegged at Rs 1,995.2 crore in the first quarter, which fell to Rs 1,820.03 crore in the second and thereafter, to Rs 1,553.17 crore in the third quarter of the current fiscal, according to the data shared by the Minister.

The Minister said that the government received Rs 762.77 crore in FY17 from the sale of partial or residual spectrum at auction determined price, in addition to Rs 32,434 crore that came from 2016 spectrum auctions. Thus, there is no shortfall in receipts compared to the Telecom's Department's targets for the year.
To another query, the Minister said that the telecom appellate tribunal had directed the Telecom Department to take on record the merger of Bharti Airtel and Augere Wireless Broadband Services and their licences, and that "the matter is under consideration".
Another proposal of demerger of telecom business of Reliance Telecom Ltd (and merger into Reliance Communications in five licence service areas) is also "under consideration", he said.

Three proposals -- merger of Telenor India with Bharti Airtel; merger of Vodafone India and subsidiaries with Idea Cellular; and demerger of wireless telecom business of RCOM and RTL and its consolidation with Aircel -- are at the initial stages and are yet to be approved by the National Company Law Tribunal, Sinha informed.
The Minister said that there will be "enough competition" in the market even after the consolidation, as six players are expected to remain in each service area.
"The consolidation among the Indian Telecom Service providers does not cause fragmentation of spectrum, rather it allows consolidation of spectrum to provide better services by efficient utlisation of spectrum," he said.