BSNL pays BWA spectrum fees of Rs 8,314cr; DoT to slap penalty

State-run Bharat Sanchar Nigam (BSNL) today paid Rs 8,313.8 crore for Broadband Wireless Access (BWA) spectrum, two days after the deadline expired, prompting the government to slap a penalty of Rs 30 crore on the PSU.

With this, the government has got the full Rs 38,543.31 crore from the sale of BWA spectrum.

A senior Department of Telecom (DoT) official said BSNL made the payment on Thursday. BSNL made the payment without any penalty.

DoT official said the issue of paying the penalty would be dealt with later, with DoT planning to raise a demand of Rs 30 crore.

Earlier, BSNL had sought to 5 days' time for making the BWA spectrum payment due to unavailability of funds.

All the other operators who got BWA spectrum, including MTNL, had already paid their dues by June 22, the due date.

"We have asked for a 'few more days' to pay the broadband spectrum fee, as we are in the process of arranging funds. Although we have the required funds, these funds are not liquid at the moment and are all tied up," BSNL CMD Kuldeep Goyal had said.

BSNL had to match the winning pan-India bid -- except for the Delhi and Mumbai circles, which are reserved for MTNL -- under the broadband auction that concluded recently.

State telcos were given both 3G (third generation) and BWA spectrum more than a year ago without participating in the process of auction and were asked to match the winning bids later.