DoT to slap Rs132 crore penalty on major telcos for service rollout delays

The department of telecom is understood to have decided to impose a penalty that will net Rs132 crore from some major telecom operators. The telcos will be penalised for delays in rolling out services after the award of licence and spectrum.

The penalty, which will be charged as liquidated damages (LD), is for delays since 2005 for which show-cause notices had been issued earlier.

"As per the calculation, the revised LD amount is Rs132 crore, Bharti Airtel (Rs28.20 crore), Reliance Communications (Rs19.85 crore), Tata Teleservices (Rs36.5 crore) and Tata Teleservices (Maharashtra) (Rs3.7 crore), DoT observed in a note.

Aircell has been slapped a Rs28.995 crore LD, while Vodafone Essar, MTNL, BSNL have not been slapped any LD, according to an internal note of DoT.

According to the note, Ideal Cellular has to pay Rs1 crore, HFCL Infotel and Sistema Shyam has to pay Rs7 crore.

The department relaxed the roll-out conditions for mobile companies and allowed them to fulfil their obligation within a year of the date of issue of spectrum as against the date of grant of licence, which was considered the basis for the calculation of the roll-out targets earlier.