DoT raises Reliance Info penalty

New Delhi: Reliance Infocomm will have to pay a penalty of over Rs 530 crore for providing multiple registration and call-forwarding facilities to its limited mobility subscribers, instead of Rs 485 crore as recommended by the Telecom Regulatory Authority of India (TRAI).

According to official sources, this additional Rs 45 crore has been estimated by the Department of Telecommunications (DoT), based on its calculations that have been issued in the guidelines on universal access service licence issued yesterday.

As per the guidelines, Reliance will have to "pay till the date of payment from the date of their having signed the basic service licence agreement, a penal interest @ 5 per cent above prime lending rate (PLR) of State Bank of India prevalent on the day the payment became due, i.e., the date they signed the licence agreement. The interest shall be compounded monthly and a part of the month shall be reckoned as a full month for the purposes of calculation of interest."

The difference in calculations made by TRAI and DoT could be on account of the prime rate that has been used for calculation of the penalty. While the authority has considered prime rate in a different year, the telecom department has calculated the amount based on constant prime rate on the date Reliance had signed the licence agreement.