After its investigation, the anti-graft body on Monday decided that the government can implement the Radio Frequency Distribution and Pricing Policy 2012. Two weeks ago, the CIAA had directed the government not to implement the policy, warning of possible loss in revenue from licence renewal fees fixed in the policy. The CIAA direction had virtually stopped the assignment of spectrum to companies, mainly affecting the government’s plan to issue the unified licence, also known as “basic telecom service” licence to United Telecom Limited (UTL), Smart Telecom and STM Telecom Sanchar.
On Tuesday, the CIAA issued a six-point directive to the Ministry of Information and Communications and implementing agency—Nepal Telecommunications Authority (NTA)—which states that that the government must ensure licence renewal fees collection, competition in the market and level playing field to all telecom companies.
“The licence renewal fee set for the ‘basic telecom service’ in the spectrum policy was Rs 2.75 million less than what the government had fixed through a Cabinet decision last year,” said Sameer Silwal, investigation officer at the CIAA. “We have directed the government to ensure the collection of licence renewal fees as set by the government and to include a precondition that the licence will be renewed only after clearing the entire renewal fee—Rs 20,132,750,000—by the 10th year of operation.”
The policy implemented by the government six months ago mainly says the licence holders of the ‘basic telecom service’ will have to pay the renewal fees in 10 annual instalments. As per the licence renewal fee payment schedule in the policy, companies have to pay Rs 3.50 billion in 11 yearly instalments and the remaining Rs 13.13 billion before licence renewal in the 10th year.
NTA Director Ananda Raj Khanal said the CIAA was “impressive” for the development of the telecom sector. He said the government will issue the unified licence to small operators after completing a study on the eligibility of companies that have applied for the licence. “We are in the final stage of checking eligibility of UTL and Smart Telecom,” he said.
On the basis of the report of the study, the NTA board will decide whether to issue the unified licence.
Unified telecom licence holders can provide multiple telecom services, including the nationwide GSM service. Attracted by the licence, the country leading business house—Chaudhary Group (CG)—has also ventured into the telecom business buying an 80 percent stake in STM Telecom.
CG General Manager Ashish Sharma said they have targeted to emerge as one of the big competitors for major telecom companies—Nepal Telecom and Ncell. “However, although STM is eligible, NTA is not showing interest to issue the licence to us,” he said.
As per the government provision, once a company obtains the licence, it can provide service for 25 years. However, after 10 years of service operation, the company has to renew the licence every five years for three times. According to the CIAA, the Telecommunications Act and Telecommunication Regulation has no clear provision regarding the collection of licence renewal fees for the second and third licence renewal. “We have asked the government to clear these types of confusion in the laws,” said Silwal.
No comments:
Post a Comment