The DoT has sought the Finance Ministry's views on a TRAI proposal of allowing telecom companies to sell stake during the lock-in period provided half the money from the sale was given to the government.
A DoT official said we have sought MoF's comments by April 6. The DoT is also seeking opinion of the Law Ministry to take a final decision, he said.
Earlier this month, telecom regulator TRAI had endorsed a DoT suggestion of a three-year ban on sale of telecom promoters' equity but it allowed the operators to do so prior to DoT's permission along with two other conditions.
The two conditions are that half of the money earned from the stake sale would be utilised for telecom network expansion only and the balance would be transferred to the licensor.
The proposal was in response to DoT's suggestion that such a ban should be there to prevent promoters from making windfall profit by selling part of the stake after getting a licence.
TRAI had proposed that the DoT in consultation with the Law and Finance Ministry should explore the possibility of imposing this two conditions on the sale purchase transactions if any that has taken place.
The profit on sale of such shares will be defined as "the difference between sale value/agreed value of the equity shares on the date on which the transfer of such shares takes place and their face value on the date of application for UAS licensee".
The DoT had referred the matter to TRAI after allegations against the DoT for selling spectrum at throwaway prices to telecom companies, which resulted in telcos selling stakes in their ventures at a huge premium.
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If this proposal is made into a policy, the DoT will apply it retrospectively bringing the promoters of the existing operators, including Unitech Wireless and Swan Telecom, to part with their sale proceeds.
This move was aimed at Swan, Shyam, Unitech, Loop Telecom, S Tel and Datacom, which were given licences in early 2008.
Unitech Wireless had bought a pan-India licence for Rs 1,650 crore before selling 60 per cent of its equity at an enterprise value of Rs 11,620 crore to Norway-based Telenor last year.
Swan Telecom sold 45 per cent stake to Etisalat for 900 million dollars after getting an all-India telecom licence for Rs 1,651 crore.
The idea of imposing such a ban was to prevent fly-by-night operators making a windfall gain.