The consensus was reached at a joint meeting of top officials--which included DoT secretary and Telecom Commission chairman Anil Kumar, finance ministry joint secretary RS Sharma, IDBI chairman & managing director GP Gupta, IFCI chairman PV Narasimham, Telecom Commission member (finance) A Prasad, member (services) PS Saran, deputy director general (value-added services) JR Gupta, DDG (basic services) N Parmeswaran, and ICICI general manager A Mukerji--held on June 24.

Meanwhile, the Union cabinet did not take up the issue of shifting existing licence holders to the revenue-sharing arrangement at its meeting on Tuesday. Sources said that last-minute changes in thecabinet note may have led to this. Finance secretary Vijay Kelkar told reporters after the meeting that he was yet to receive the cabinet note on this issue.

It was decided at the meeting that the interim 15 per cent revenue share would be subject to adjustments after the Telecom Regulatory Authority of India (TRAI) arrives at a final decision on the percentage of revenue sharing. This 15 per cent would be treated as a charge on the project.

Minutes of the meeting available with The Financial Express reveal that financial institutions were in favour of an early end to legal cases between DoT and private operators for extension of the effective date of licence.

The institutions felt that shifting of the effective date by six months will be adequate, as it would help in terminating the court cases. The industry has been lobbying for extension of the effective date between nine months and a year.

The FIs, finance ministry, and DoT also agreed that it should be mandatory for the licencees to paythe additional amount of 15 per cent of the licence fee arrears by August 15, as per the Attorney General's (AG's) legal opinion. The FIs said they would consider this payment as the promoters' contribution to the project while considering the case for financial closure.

It was, however, felt that till such closure is achieved, it would be difficult for the FIs and banks to consider enhancement of existing bank guarantees. On this basis, it was decided that a period of four months after August 15 should be given to the licencees to arrange full securitisation towards outstanding dues, despite chances that such a step could result in undersecuritisation of the outstanding dues for some period in certain cases.

The meeting also concluded that due to these factors, companies needed to be given more time up to January 31, 2000, for clearing the balance arrears.

On the matter concerning the lock-in condition on shareholding as per as the AG's opinion, the FIs felt that is should be clarified that issue ofadditional equity share capital by licensee companies/their holding companies by way of private placement/public issue shall be permitted.

In addition, the lock-in provisions shall not be applicable in case the shares are transferred pursuant to enforcement of pledge by lending FIs/banks due to defaults committed by the borrowers.

The meeting also put on record that the tripartite agreement required to be executed by the licensee, licensor, and FIs should be finalised early, with few pending issues to be sorted out early with the assistance of the ministry of finance and law.

It was also decided that while the new package would be finalised at the earliest, operators would be given one month to decide whether to migrate to the new regime or not.