DoT for licence fee cut by 3%

The Department of Telecom is considering a proposal to reduce the licence fee and spectrum charges of telecom players to 2-3 per cent from the current six per cent in the Approach Paper of Planning Commision's 11th Five-Year Plan.

The proposal had earlier faced opposition from the Finance Ministry on account of revenue loss.

We may propose reduction in licence fee to 2-3 per cent from the current six per cent to Planning Commission for its Approach Paper. We discussed it in the first meeting held for the purpose last week and another meeting is slated to be held on August 31 to further discuss the same. Nothing has been finalised yet and we are discussing, a senior DoT official said.

The other issue that was discussed for the Approach Paper was setting a target of 650 million phones by the end of 11th Plan (2012).

It was suggested by the Department that a target of 650 million telephone subscribers be set up during the period, mostly led by mobiles. The current telecom subscriber base in the country is 158.59 million. Out of this, 47.3 million are fixed lines and 111.23 million are mobiles.

Planning Commission is currently in the process of preparing an Approach Paper where all ministerial growth targets, challenges and fund requirements are stated before the final Plan document.