DoT widens scope of spl audit on Bharti Airtel
New Delhi: The department of telecommunications (DoT) has broadened the scope of the special audit on the country’s largest telecom operator, Bharti Airtel. The audit will now also probe whether the company has been underpaying the spectrum usage charge for the fiscal 2007-08 and 2008-09. Bharti Airtel along with Vodafone-Essar, Tata Teleservices Ltd (TTSL) and Idea Cellular came under the scanner of special audit for allegedly not reporting the revenue on sale of handsets that were bundled with some talk-time. According to sources, the government has contended that Bharti Airtel has been following the practice of excluding the wireline revenue from the adjusted gross revenue (AGR) while calculating the spectrum usage charge as well as the licence fee despite the unified access service licence (UASL) not allowing for such a provision. The provisions of the USAL while migrating from the basic service (BS) state that licence fee for the wireless licence for base stations and wireless subscriber would be computed as a percentage of the AGR. While calculating the AGR for levying the licence fee and royalty from the wireline subscribers shall not be taken into account. However, until April 2008, the provisions of the UASL who migrated from the cellular mobile licence (CMTS) had to include the revenue from the wireline segment while calculating the licence fee as well as the spectrum usage charge and no exemption of the wireline revenue segment was available to them. Bharti Airtel, persistently opposed this stating that telecom operator migrated from the CMTS to UASL shouldn’t be charged with spectrum charge on the wireline revenue since it doesn’t entail any spectrum usage. Eventually the UASL was amended for the previously CMTS operators and the terms were brought at par with the BS. The government, however didn’t change the definition of the AGR for the purpose. Despite which the operator is believed to have submitted revised statements by having deducted the wireline segment revenue from the AGR, which were then rejected by the government. The special audit would hence examine whether the company followed the appropriate accounting procedures and assess whether they allowed for correct determination of the government from the spectrum fee, in accordance with the UASL terms and conditions for the two years, 2007-08 and 2008-09. The special audit has also been mandated to recommend to the DoT whether the existing statement of revenue and licence fee
CAclubindia
