Ruling out any possibility of a much sought moratorium from payment of licence fees, new communications minister Jagmohan said, "defaulting operators will have to face consequences in case of failure to pay the dues."

Department of Telecommunications (DoT) will issue notices within ten days to all defaulters asking them to pay the dues before March 31 or face consequences as per the licence fee agreement, Jagmohan said in an informal chat with reporters here.

Cellular operators owe about Rs 3000 crore to the exchequer as licence fee dues and have been demanding moratorium on licence fee payment on grounds that poor customer response and governmental bottlenecks had rendered their services less profitable.