Ministry thumbs down to Koshika

Ministry thumbs down to Koshika
Sunil Jain

New Delhi, Sept 6: Despite all efforts by the Usha Group to get the government to revalidate its cellular licenses which expired in July due to non-payment of dues, the ministry of telecom has given a thumbs down signal to the company. While telecom minister Ram Vilas Paswan met company representatives on his arrival from Leh on Friday -- secretary R.N. Goyal could not make it from Leh as he was unable to get a flight -- ministry sources said that nothing concrete emerged from the meeting.

All four of Koshika's circles -- Bihar, Orissa, UP (West) and UP (East) -- had been terminated on July 24. The company has apparently got some offers from both Escotel and Hutchison, and is keen that its licenses not be cancelled.

According to sources, the DoT has said that the licenses will now be auctioned with a reserve price, and Koshika is free to bid for them if it likes. The note has yet to be okayed by Paswan.

In a related development, the ministry has also turned down the request of Punjab cellular license holder, JT Mobiles, to reduce its license fee dues. Earlier, JT Mobiles had been arguing that it be allowed to not pay license fees for a period of 693 days as the license had been terminated for this period. As early as March, however, Attorney General Soli Sorabjee had said that JT's license had never been terminated, that JT had not been allowed to operate it only because they had not paid their dues. While both Paswan and his deputy Tapan Sikdar were in favour of reviving JT's license -- and waiving the 693 days fee till some later date -- the department's bureaucrats turned this down.

The ministry has now asked Evergrowth to pay the full amount of license fee -- Rs 452 crore along with Rs 22 crore as interest -- within a period of 30 days. Of this, Rs 300 crore will have to be paid immediately. In addition, Evergrowth will have to give a letter of unconditional acceptance, waiving off any claims to the 693 days license dues.