DoT to serve termination notices on 35 licences

The Telecom Ministry, which hassought a legal opinion on cancellation of some telecom licences for failure tomeet roll-out deadlines, on Friday said the process of issuing notices to 35licenses will be completed by March next year.

"The process of issuing notices to 35 licences formissing out roll-out obligations will be completed by March," Departmentof Telecom Secretary R Chandrashekhar said.

The Telecom Regulatory Authority of India (Trai) had askedthe DoT to impose a penalty and cancel as many as 65 new licences overoperators' failure to roll out services within the stipulated timeframe.

What the new telecom policy proposes

On the New Telecom Policy (NTP), Chandrashekhar said thepolicy is expected to be unveiled in January.

Under the NTP, operators may be allowed to share airwavesand there may be more liberal M&A norms as suggested by the draft releasedin October. This is expected to provide respite to the crowded Indian telecommarket, which has 12-13 players operating in some circles.

The Telecom Ministry has been issuing notices to firms ontwo issues - ineligibility to get licences and missing roll-out obligations.

The DoT has already issued 15 notices to new telecomcompanies out of the 65 recommended by Trai. All of these were among the 122licences that were identified by Trai with respect to missing roll-outobligations and ineligibility of the operator to get a licence.

The cancellations pertain to licences issued in 2008 byformer Telecom Minister A Raja, who was sacked when his ministry was accused ofselling licences and spectrum at cheaper rates, allegedly costing thegovernment billions of dollars in revenue.

The DoT has already collected over Rs 300 crore inliquidated damages from various new operators for not rolling out serviceswithin the time stipulated as per licence conditions.

According to the conditions, the operators have to cover 10per cent of district headquarters within a telecom circle within the first yearof allotment of spectrum. After expiry of another 52 weeks, after claimingliquidated damages, the licences can be cancelled in case the services are notrolled out as per licence conditions.

A final decision on this issue will be taken by the DoT.