DoT seeks ₹1.72 lakh crore from GAIL
DOT SENT A LETTER TO GAIL LAST MONTH SEEKING ₹1,72,655 CR IN DUES ON IP-1 AND IP-2 LICENCES AS WELL AS ISP LICENCE
NEW DELHI: The Department of Telecommunications (DoT) has sought ₹1.72 lakh crore in past statutory dues from state-owned gas utility GAIL India Ltd following the Supreme Court’s ruling on revenues that need to be taken into consideration for payment of government dues.
People with direct knowledge of the development said DoT sent a letter to GAIL last month seeking ₹1,72,655 crore in dues on IP-1 and IP-2 licences as well as Internet Service Provider (ISP) licence.
In response, GAIL has told the Department of Telecom that it owes nothing more than what it has already paid to the government.
The firm told DoT that it had obtained ISP licence in 2002 for a period of 15 years, which expired in 2017.
But GAIL never did any business under the licence and since no revenue was generated it cannot pay any amount.
On IP-1 and IP-2 licences, GAIL has told DoT that it generated ₹35 crore of revenue since 2001-02 and not ₹2,49,788 crore that has been considered for levying past dues, they said.
The peole quoted above said the dues being sought are more than three times the net worth of GAIL and several times the actual revenue earned.
The Supreme Court had on October 24 ruled that non-telecom revenues earned by firms using spectrum or airwaves allocated by the government will be considered for calculating statutory dues.
While telcos such as Bharti Airtel and Vodafone Idea may have had non-telecom revenues generated from using the government licence and spectrum, firms such as GAIL had no such revenue.
The Department of Telecom is seeking ₹1.47 lakh crore from all telcos in past statutory dues.
Besides GAIL, DoT is also seeking ₹1.25 lakh crore from PowerGrid which had both a national long-distance as well as an internet licence.
PowerGrid says it has an adjusted gross revenue (AGR) of ₹3,566 crore since 2006-07 and after adding penalty it comes to ₹22,168 crore.
Infrastructure provider categoryI (IP-I) are those infrastructure providers who provide assets such as dark fibre, right of way, duct space and towers to the licensees of telecom services.
GAIL has a vast network of gas pipelines and it laid optic fibre along it to provide bandwidth to third parties.
Issuance of IP-II licence was discontinued in December 2005.
People familiar with the matter said the Department of Telecom estimates that the telecom operators owe ₹55,054.51 crore as spectrum usage charges (SUC) as on October 31, 2019, while the figure for licence fees stands at ₹92,642 crore.