8216;Telcos8217; fates hangs in balance as DoT eyes action8217;

While for failure of the roll-out,they operators have 60 days to reply,8221; Telecom secretary R Chandrasekhar said on the sidelines of a Ficci event.

Last year,DoT had served 119 show cause notices to various telecom operators,of which 85 were for those ineligible to get licences.

8220;They are currently under examination and we hope in the next couple of weeks to form our final decision,8221; he said. The notices,as pointed out by the CAG,were sent out to telcos for their alleged ineligibility to get licences due to the misinformation furnished by them,and for their failure to timely roll out networks.

The Comptroller and Auditor General had listed out licences given to new operators,including Unitech,Videocon,S-Tel,Loop and Swan. TRAI also pointed lapses in licences held by these apart from few others while recommending their cancellation.

According to the government auditor CAG,there was a revenue loss of up to Rs 1.76 lakh crore in awarding licences and spectrum,the value of which were fixed according to 2001 price,for pan-India operations during the tenure of former telecom minister A Raja.

The operators were given 60 days to respond to showcause notices and each case would be dealt separately.