DoT Spectrum Revenue May Cross Rs. 49,000 Crores This Fiscal

Even in the absence of a spectrum auction in the current fiscal, the Department of Telecom (DoT) is all set to earn a revenue of over Rs. 49,000 crore, exceeding the budgeted target by about Rs. 6,000 crore.

The government had pegged revenue from communication services for the current fiscal at Rs. 42,865 crore, including upfront realisation from spectrum sale and licence fee.

"The revenue projection for the current fiscal is over Rs. 49,000 crore, of which Rs. 37,000 crore have already been received till December," Telecom Secretary Rakesh Garg told PTI.

Elaborating, Garg said DoT got Rs. 22,332.42 crore as upfront fee from spectrum auction in March, Rs. 6,701.92 crore licence fee, Rs. 5,754.53 crore spectrum charges and about Rs. 2,246.09 crore through other receipts till December.

That apart, DoT has received Rs. 5,384 crore from Reliance Communications as spectrum liberalisation fee for 16 circles whereas Vodafone has paid Rs. 2,450 crore for merger of its various subsidiaries.

Garg said the Department will get spectrum charges and licence fee for the remaining three months of the current fiscal, and liberalisation fee for the remaining four circles of Reliance Communications.

DoT, Garg said, has asked Trai to give its view on the four circles where market-determined price is not available and once that is clear, the proceeds from Reliance Communications will total about Rs. 6,000 crore.

Reliance Communications had applied to liberalise its 800MHz spectrum in 20 circles.

The government, according to Garg, is likely to conduct next round of spectrum auction around May-June this year.

Sector regulator Trai is likely to give recommendations about the reserve price by the end of this month.

Garg said that after Trai's views, it takes about 4-5 months for the whole process to shape up as DoT may require some clarifications. The Telecom Commission also needs to approve the reserve price before the Cabinet gives its final approval.

In the March auction, the government had got about Rs. 1.10 lakh crore from sale of spectrum in four bands 800MHz, 900MHz, 1800MHz and 2100MHz. The government had put about 470.75MHz of spectrum for auction of which around 11 percent remained unsold.