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Accounts of four telecom majors under scanner
By siliconindia
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Thursday, 02 April 2009, 19:26 IST |
1 Comments
New Delhi: Putting India's four major telecom providers such as Bharti Airtel, Vodafone, Idea and Tata Teleservices under scanner, the government of India has ordered a special audit on the accounts of these companies to check whether they have manipulated the account. Ambani-owned RCom is already asked to face a similar audit to find whether the firm was showing revenue under some heads that attracts lower license fee.
A senior official of the Department of Telecom (DoT) said that a special audit for all the integrated telecom companies will be undertaken, as suggested by Telecom Regulatory Authority of India (TRAI). Earlier, Trai has found a jump in revenue from long distance segments, in case of Bharti Airtel, which attracts only six percent license fee as against up to 10 percent for other mobile services.
Meanwhile, an Airtel spokesperson said, "As a responsible corporate following the highest standards of corporate governance, Bharti Airtel has always strictly adhered to the regulatory requirements and processes. In our communication to the regulator, we have already clarified the queries raised by them, which are in complete compliance and within regulatory framework."
According to a study by the financial analysis wing of Trai on the trends in the gross revenue/adjusted gross revenue declared by the telecom operators under the different licenses, Bharti Airtel has shown a shift in revenues to the long distance segment (STD) to take advantage of the arbitrage that exists in the differential license fee that is applicable on different kind of licenses.
Seeking action against this Ramesh Dube, an MP has written to the communication and IT minister A Raja. Dube said that private telecom operators were circumventing the payment of licence fee share on different accounts causing the exchequer losses of over Rs 1,000 crore.