Govt looks the other way as telecom firms default

Govt looks the other way as telecom firms default
Navika Kumar

NEW DELHI, FEBRUARY 2: Thanks to the Communications Minister Ram Vilas Paswan and the Department of Telecommunications (DoT), telecom companies may be encouraged to treat all deadlines for paying up their licence fees very lightly.

The deadline on January 31, for erring telecom companies to pay up their outstanding dues of licence fees, has passed without any official statement being made by the ministry in this regard. The ministry has neither officially extended the deadline, nor announced companies failing to pay their dues as defaulters. The three defaulting firms are J T Mobile (now taken over by Sunil Mittal), Modicomm of the BK Modi group and the Hinduja's Fascel. These companies have large outstandings running into hundreds of crores, and were keen to get an extension of the deadline of January 31.

The DoT referred the matter to the Attorney General on the legal implications of an extension as the deadlines had been set through a Cabinet decision.

The AG's opinion queered the pitch for telecomcompanies. The AG laid stiff conditions for any extension in the deadline for these companies. He stated that a penal interest of 2% month should be levied on all outstanding dues and bank guarantees for the remaining amounts could not be compromised. The AG has opined that firms wanting extensions, would have to furnish ``affidavits'' stating that they would forego the right to migrate to revenue sharing regime if they failed to clear the dues along with interest by March 31.

It was the last condition which was considered very tough and created problems for the companies. Communications minister Ram Vilas Paswan, debated with officials for an entire day after receiving the AG's comments but officials in DoT were unwilling to take any decision.