Centre to give away spectrum

New Delhi, July 6: The government’s proposal to allow existing GSM operators keep extra spectrum lying with them after levying a one-time fee may actually cause a revenue loss of Rs 10,000 crore annually to the exchequer, say industry sources.

According to sources, the department of telecom is considering to charge a fixed amount for spectrum beyond the prescribed 6.2 MHz held by some of the leading mobile operators.

Communications and IT minister A. Raja, who met Prime Minister Manmohan Singh last week, is understood to have briefed him about the proposal.

According to sources, the government gave the appro-val for one-time pricing beyond 6.2 MHz of spectrum (radio frequency) in terms of enhancing the spectrum fee by one per cent more of adjusted gross revenue (AGR) of a cellular operator.

Cellular operators having beyond 8MHz of spectrum will be required to pay two per cent more of the AGR, sources said.

These proposals would now be discussed by the telecom commission, a decision making body of the DoT, before being implemented.

When contacted, some of the new mobile operators and a few CDMA players criticised the proposal saying if implemented, this would leave no room for them to expand their services in future in view of scarcity of spectrum.

Meanwhile, the industry said market friendly tariffs and a clear spectrum policy should form the bedrock of Wi-Max policy to obtain its full benefit. — PTI