Bharti Airtel has criticised the Telecom Regulatory Authority of India?s (Trai) recommendations saying that they are partial towards new operators and punitive towards older ones like Bharti.
In a highly critical letter to the department of telecommunications (DoT) secretary, R Chandrasekhar, Bharti Airtel?s head of India and South Asia operations Sanjay Kapoor has requested that the government junk the report in favour of a more rational and fair solution.
?We are highly disappointed with the Trai recommendations. These recommendations are totally arbitrary, illegal, flawed and non-transparent. They further increase the regulatory arbitrage, completely ignore the ongoing developments and are devoid of any commercial or economic reasoning?, Kapoor has said.
According to analysts, Bharti Airtel would have to pay around Rs 4,000 crore as a one-time charge for the spectrum held by it.
The company has questioned the government?s right to levy a one-time spectrum charge on the telecom operators for spectrum beyond 6.2 Mhz and under 10 Mhz. It has said that the Trai in 2007 had very clearly said that imposition of a one-time spectrum fee up to 10 Mhz might not be legally feasible in the view of the fact that higher levels of usage charges have been agreed to and are being collected by the government. Thus it recommended a one-time charge beyond 10 Mhz of spectrum as none of the operators held spectrum beyond 10 Mhz at that point of time.
