Telecom windfall: Govt to reap Rs15,000cr

Cheetah2Mar-2007 Parsvnath22Aug-2007 BPL21Sep-2007 *licences applied for  At present, the licence fee is around Rs 1,536 crore for a national telecom licence, that is, permission to operate in all 23 circles in the country.  Companies like BPL Mobile (22 circles), HFCL (21), Datacomp (22), Spice Communications (20), ByCell (5), Swan Telecom (14), Cheetah (2) and Parsvnath (22) have applied for licences. It remains to be seen how many of them get the licence and spectrum.  In financial year 2006-07, the exchequer earned Rs 2,090 crore as spectrum charges and Rs 6,360 crore as licence fees. It had collected Rs 1,028 crore in 2004-05 and Rs 1,367 crore in 2005-06.  Trai officials attribute this rise in the revenue to rapid growth in the country