Cong: Centre favoured telcos by deferring recovery of dues
CHANDIGARH: A day after the apex court pulled up the Centre for giving a “long rope to telecom companies for payment of their dues”, the Congress on Saturday accused the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) government of “crony capitalism” and thus “fleecing the cellphone users of over ₹1.6-lakh crore”.
Terming the rebuke of the Supreme Court in the matter “stinging strictures” against the Modi government, AICC communication in-charge Randeep Surjewala at a press briefing here said that Prime Minister Narendra Modi had lost “the moral, ethical and constitutional right to continue in his office even for a single day”.
He alleged that the government was giving the four private players a long rope to increase the tariff of prepaid cellphone users by 40%, which was a means for them to recover their adjusted gross revenue (AGR).
Giving the chronology of what he described as “crony capitalism”, he said that on October 24, 2019, the Supreme Court had directed Vodafone-Idea, Airtel Bharti, Tata Tele Services (now owned by Airtel) and Reliance Jio to pay ₹1.02-lakh crore (as indicated by the solicitor general before the court) to the government towards the AGR under the telecom policy. “On November 20, 2019, PM Narendra Modi in a cabinet meeting also approved deferring ₹42,000 crore of spectrum auction instalments of Vodafone-Idea, Airtel Bharti and Reliance Jio for 2020-21 and 2021-22,” he alleged further. Surjewala also held that these three companies in December 2019 proceeded to raise their tariff and data usage charges for prepaid customers by 40% to 50%.
“This will mean that such 112 crore phone users will pay an extra amount of ₹35,561 crore annually and hence, in the remaining four and half years of the Modi government, 112 crore prepaid cell phone users will pay an extra amount of ₹1.6-lakh crore,” he added.
Surjewala asked what was the quid pro quo for Modi government to defer recovery of this amount from telecom companies.