Clean chit to Bharti Airtel,Tata Communications.
The telecom ministry has pulled up SingTel for violating ILD licence norms by acquiring and billing customers in India without a licence between 2005 and 2009. Meanwhile, it gave a clean chit to Airtel and Tata, which provided international private lease circuits to the foreign firm.
“The committee constituted by the Department of Telecom (DoT) says that it’s a mistake solely on the part of Singapore Telecom (SingTel), which invoiced the customers at the Indian end. Accordingly, the committee opines that Tata Communications and Bharti Airtel are not liable to pay any penalty in response to the show-cause notices issued by DoT for violation of the terms and conditions of ILD license,” DoT said in a note.
DoT had set up a committee to examine and suggest the quantum of penalty to be imposed on Tata Communications and Bharti Airtel for the violation of ILD licence norms. According to the licencing norms, Indian ILD operators are authorised to provide the Indian circuits to a foreign carrier (like SingTel in this case), so that they are able to provide end-to-end services to their customers in their territories.
The committee found, from submissions made by Bharti, that it had raised the invoice to SingTel at their Singapore address for the portion of the circuit provided by Bharti. Airtel paid the applicable licence fee on the revenue earned by providing the Indian half circuit.
“The committee feels that prima facie, Bharti Airtel has adhered to the ILD licencing and regulatory conditions,” the report said. While Tata Communications (erstwhile VSNL) said in its reply that SingTel had not submitted any document showing that the customer had been acquired outside India and Tatas had not felt any need to check this as SingTel could acquire customers only in its own licenced territory and not in India, according to the agreement.
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Tatas have, however, taken immediate corrective steps and took confirmation from all foreign carriers that they were neither contracting nor billing the customers in India under such agreements.
The committee also observed that Tatas, too, have paid the licence fee on revenues earned by them for providing half leased circuits to Singapore Telecommunications and observed “Tata Communications is not liable to pay any penalty in response to the show cause notice issued by the DoT.”
As a measure of safeguard, the committee recommended issuance of an instruction to all ILD service providers that their agreements with entities/foreign carriers must contain stipulations to ensure provisions of the Indian Telegraph Act, 1885, and terms and conditions of licence agreement are not violated. It should also be ensured that foreign carriers which did not have an Indian licence, did not contact customers in India for provision of telecom services, and did not issue invoices to customers at Indian-end.