Cabinet refers one-time spectrum fee issue to EGoM

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SME Times News Bureau | 04 Jul, 2012
The cabinet Tuesday did not take any decision on the proposal to charge a one-time, auction-determined fee for all airwaves held by existing telecom operators and referred it to the Empowered Group of Ministers (EGoM), a top government official said.

"The cabinet has referred the issue of one time spectrum fee to the EGoM has to send its recommendations back to the cabinet," the official said after the meeting.

The department of telecom (DoT) has proposed to levy on incumbent operators a one-time spectrum charge for the remaining period of their licences.

According to sources, the DoT has made three proposals to the cabinet - imposing a one time fee on all airwaves held by existing operators, imposing the fee on spectrum beyond the start-up spectrum that is 4.4 MHz or to impose the fee on spectrum held beyond the contracted spectrum of 6.2 MHz.

A decision taken to charge the fee would hit the operators including Bharti Airtel and Vodafone, who have not been affected by the Supreme Court's ruling to cancel the 122 licences issued in 2008, but will then have to shell huge chunks of money.

According to the DoT, this will ensure a level playing field among all the operators.

As of now it is not clear when the EGoM meeting would take place. A meeting scheduled for Monday was postponed earlier and by the evening its new head, Agriculture Minister Sharad Pawar even opted out of the panel.

Last month, an EGoM meeting was to take place under the chairmanship of the then finance minister Pranab Mukherjee.

But it was deferred as Mukherjee apparently did not want to sit on judgment on a controversial issue as he was heading for the presidential poll.