Jagmohan rules out revenue

Jagmohan declined to comment on what stand the Jaswant Singh headed Group on Telecom GoT would take on the question of revenue sharing while formulating the new telecom policy. quot;If revenue sharing is brought in on retrospective basis, what will happen to those companies who were left out at the time of initial biddingquot;, he said, adding that not a single operator had talked about revenue sharing at the time of the initial bidding three years ago.

Jagmohan said the government would not move from its stand. quot;All defaulters must pay licence fee dues by February 28, as it is not feasible in legal and constitutional terms for the government to make any further concessionsquot;, he warned, adding that strong action will be taken against those who do not pay up in line with contract conditions.

However, he gave hints about going slow on the matter of the entire 100 per cent dues, saying that those companies who would pay up the 20 per cent by February end may be given some concession in the form of later extensions.

Linking the demand of industry for government intervention, Jagmohan said that it was surprising for industry to demand concessions now even as they had clamoured for opening up and economic reforms.

quot;Economic reforms will be a failure if industry will not meet its commitments and change its attitude towards honouring licence commitmentsquot;, he added.

Jagmohan singled out basic operators for criticism for not meeting the rural telephony targets as enshrined in the licence agreement. Reiterating that the government was keen on giving top priority to telecom in the country, the minister said that a huge amount of Rs 90,000 crore had been earmarked for the department of telecom DoTin the ninth five year plan.

Jagmohan said the department of telecom would provide more than two crore lines during the plan period and would raise the entire amount for this through internal accruals. All villages would be provided with telephones and congestion in Internet would be removed by providing high capacity, high speed infrastructure, he added.

Meanwhile, the Cellular Operators Association of India COAI took strong exception to Jagmohan8217;s stand on licence fee payments, saying that,quot;DoT had lost its moral right to preach licence fee compliancequot;. COAI spokesperson TV Ramachandran said.quot; DoT is guilty of wide ranging contractual violations and derailment of the process of telecom reformsquot;.

Ramachandran said that individual operators would seek legal redressal against the DoT action and would press for compensation for,quot; serious violations made by DoT of its licence agreement with the operators, compensation for which, in our estimation, would far exceed the DoT claims of Rs 3,700 crore on licence fee outstandingsquot;.

The COAI has now demanded that the DoT refrain from precipitous action that could lead to irretrievable losses for the operators as well lead to further rounds of expensive and time consuming litigation. The COAI has urged the government to undertake speedy redressal of existing disputes in a transparent manner.

COAI sources said that all cellular operators had already served arbitration notices on the DoT way back in October 98.quot;Not only had they not responded, the DoT has precipitated matters by pressing for recovery of duesquot;, rued Ramachandran.