Finance Ministry Wants Telcos To Pay Higher Licence Renewal Fee !

[Honest 836]

Finmin wants telcos to pay higher licence renewal fee

11 Sep, 2008, 0232 hrs IST, ET

NEW DELHI: After sparring over spectrum-linked charges, the finance ministry now wants the department of telecom (DoT) to consult it on the fee that telcos will have to pay to extend the tenure of their licences.

The licences of all existing operators (which were awarded for 20 years) are set to expire in the next few years. While DoT has proposed that an existing operator should pay Rs 825 crore for a 10-year extension, the finmin wants this fee to be much higher.

The issue of licence extension has cropped up now because of the upcoming auction for 3G spectrum. All successful bidders — both existing operators and new entrants, including foreign telcos — will be given spectrum for 20 years.

But the licences of all existing 2G players — which were given in the 90s for a 20-year period — are set to expire over the next couple of years. “Since the licences of existing operators would expire on different dates before the end of the 20-year period of 3G spectrum allocation, they would not be allowed to use the third generation frequencies for the full tenure,” the DoT said in an internal note.

Earlier too, it had said that the 2G licence tenure of existing operators that bag 3G spectrum should be extended to ensure the two licences have the same tenure.

The finance ministry, during a meeting on August 27, asked the DoT to inform all telcos that their licences would not be extended automatically, but at a ‘price determined by the government’. The finmin plans to have consultations with the DoT to determine the ‘renewal fee’.

The development also implies that the DoT may have to rework its proposed formula for calculating the renewal fee.

The DoT’s current proposal works as follows: If a telco needs to extend its licence by 10 years, it would have to pay about Rs 825.5 crore.

This figure is arrived at by taking the entry fee (for a telecom licence) of Rs 1,651 crore multiplied by 10 (the number of years for which the licence needs to be extended), and the total is divided by 20 (the number of years for which the telco can use the 3G spectrum). Using the DoT’s formula, the government can garner an additional Rs 3,000 crore. The finmin, however, wants a new methodology and a higher renewal fee.

Telecom regulator Trai has already objected to the DoT formula. The regulator has told the telecom department that ‘the renewal of licence should not be linked with auction of spectrum for 3G’.

“At present, the government is thinking of auction of spectrum for 3G, while in the future some more spectrum may have to be auctioned for telecom services which would again necessitate extension of some licences, if this practice is followed,” Trai had said in an earlier communication to the DoT on the issue.

[Sadikk 301]

Lol telecommunication is only sector where consumers are benefit most, and now this khadi netas want their benefits as well.

salon sudhar jao. Bharat ko aagey badhao.

By announcing high renewal charges, they will get under table money to keep it low, and will keep it low after proper GHOOS from all big players.

[KumaarShah 143]

^^^

They need money to fight the next elections, after all. Poor people, hahahaha

[Honest 836]

They need money to fight the next elections, after all. Poor people, hahahaha

^^^

Point to be noted My Lord.

[rajat8676 0]

Agar politicians sudhar gaye to fir Bharat mein kharab kaun rah jayega? Yaar, zyaada perfection bhi buri baat hao

[Greatest 55]

^^^ true true..!!

[Sadikk 301]

lol

[HetalDP 947]

Any way that is the BASE Prices which was hicked but everybody know that the Final Bid amount would be substantially Higher then Base Price

[KumaarShah 143]

OT,

Copy of an email I received some time back, But nevertheless something interesting:

Is India poor, who says? Ask Swiss banks

With personal account deposit bank of $1500 billion in foreign reserve which have been misappropriated, an amount 13 times larger than the country's foreign debt, one needs to rethink if India is a poor country?.

DISHONEST INDUSTRIALISTS, scandalous politicians and corrupt IAS, IRS, IPS officers have deposited in foreign banks in their illegal personal accounts a sum of about $ 1500 billion, which have been misappropriated by them. This amount is about 13 times larger than the country's foreign debt. With this amount 45 crore poor people can get Rs 1,00,000 each. This huge amount has been appropriated from the people of India by exploiting and betraying them.

Once this huge amount of black money and property comes back to India , the entire foreign debt can be repaid in 24 hours. After paying the entire foreign debt, we will have surplus amount, almost 12 times larger than the foreign debt. If this surplus amount is invested in earning interest, the amount of interest will be more than the annual budget of the Central government. So even if all the taxes are abolished, then also the Central government will be able to maintain the country very comfortably.

Some 80,000 people travel to Switzerland every year, of whom 25,000 travel very frequently. "Obviously, these people won't be tourists. They must be travelling there for some other reason," believes an official involved in tracking illegal money. And, clearly, he isn't referring to the commerce ministry bureaucrats who've been flitting in and out of Geneva ever since the World Trade Organisation (WTO) negotiations went into a tailspin!

Just read the following details and note how these dishonest industrialists, scandalous politicians, corrupt officers, cricketers, film actors, illegal sex trade and protected wildlife operators, to name just a few, ****ed this country's wealth and prosperity. This may be the picture of deposits in Swiss banks only. What about other international banks?

Black money in Swiss banks -- Swiss Banking Association report, 2006 details bank deposits in the territory of Switzerland by nationals of following countries:

Top five

India---- $1,456 billion

Russia ---$ 470 billion

UK -------$390 billion

Ukraine - $100 billion

China -----$ 96 billion

Now do the maths - India with $1456 billion or $1.4 trillion has more money in Swiss banks than rest of the world combined. Public loot since 1947: Can we bring back our money? It is one of the biggest loots witnessed by mankind -- the loot of the Aam Aadmi (common man) since 1947, by his brethren occupying public office. It has been orchestrated by politicians, bureaucrats and some businessmen. The list is almost all-encompassing. No wonder, everyone in India loots with impunity and without any fear.

What is even more depressing in that this ill-gotten wealth of ours has been stashed away abroad into secret bank accounts located in some of the world's best known tax havens. And to that extent the Indian economy has been stripped of its wealth. Ordinary Indians may not be exactly aware of how such secret accounts operate and what are the rules and regulations that go on to govern such tax havens. However, one may well be aware of 'Swiss bank accounts,' the shorthand for murky dealings, secrecy and of course pilferage from developing countries into rich developed ones.

In fact, some finance experts and economists believe tax havens to be a conspiracy of the western world against the poor countries. By allowing the proliferation of tax havens in the twentieth century, the western world explicitly encourages the movement of scarce capital from the developing countries to the rich.

In March 2005, the Tax Justice Network (TJN) published a research finding demonstrating that $11.5 trillion of personal wealth was held offshore by rich individuals across the globe. The findings estimated that a large proportion of this wealth was managed from some 70 tax havens.

Further, augmenting these studies of TJN, Raymond Baker -- in his widely celebrated book titled 'Capitalism' s Achilles Heel: Dirty Money and How to Renew the Free Market System' -- estimates that at least $5 trillion have been shifted out of poorer countries to the West since the mid-1970.

It is further estimated by experts that one per cent of the world's population holds more than 57 per cent of total global wealth, routing it invariably through these tax havens. How much of this is from India is anybody's guess.

What is to be noted here is that most of the wealth of Indians parked in these tax havens is illegitimate money acquired through corrupt means. Naturally, the secrecy associated with the bank accounts in such places is central to the issue, not their low tax rates as the term 'tax havens' suggests. Remember Bofors and how India could not trace the ultimate beneficiary of those transactions because of the secrecy associated with these bank accounts? IS THERE ANY ONE WHO WOULD SAVE INDIA ?

God... No No No, even he can't....... ....!!

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