The Telecom Ministry will ask for nearly $300 million from Tata Teleservices, Vodafone, Reliance Communications, Airtel and Idea Cellular for underreporting revenues, India’s Press Trust of India has reported, quoting unidentified sources.
The demand is based on a special audit report on those companies for the assessment years starting from 2006 to 2008. According to the sources, $103 million is due from Reliance Communications, $74 million from Tata Teleservices and Tata Communication, $46 million from Vodafone, $55 million from Airtel and $21 million from Idea Cellular.
In October, RCR News reported on the antecedents of the issue.
“The entire issue can be traced back to January 2009, when the Telecom Regulatory Authority of India had asked the Department of Telecom to conduct a special audit of the accounts of Reliance Communications for underreporting of revenues. In April 2009, the DoT ordered similar audits for Bharti Airtel, Idea Cellular, Tata Teleservices and Vodafone Essar. The companies came under the scanner after allegations that they were not paying the government’s share of revenue by showing the revenue earned under other categories. It was noticed that the reported revenues of some operators were higher in segments that carried low license fees than in other segments where such fees were high,” RCR reported.
The PTI report had also stated Telecom Minister Kapil Sibal may meet the telcos before the DoT sends show-cause notices to these operators.
