CoS on telecom dismantled: Sources

The committee of secretaries tasked to provide relief to the telecom sector headed by Cabinet Secretary Rajiv Gaur has been dismantled, said official sources.

The CoS set up to look into the telecom sector stress relief has been dismantled following submission of their recommendations, sources added.

The panel of secretaries headed by Cabinet Secretary was set up in October to take stock of financial stress in the debt-laden telecom sector and suggest steps to provide relief to carriers such as Vodafone Idea and Bharti Airtel that are facing an over Rs 92,000 crore payout in additional statutory dues after the Supreme Court order on adjusted gross revenue (AGR).

The panel comprised secretaries in the telecom, finance and law ministries, will consider steps such as a two-year moratorium on spectrum payments for FY20 and FY21 to ease the cash flow situation of telcos, besides reductions in the Universal Service Obligation Fund (USOF) component of the licence fee, currently at 5% of AGR, and in spectrum usage charges (SUC), currently around 3% of AGR.

On November 22, relief to telecom sector came after Cabinet gave the nod to a two-year moratorium on spectrum payments as suggested by the committee.

"In view of the current financial stress faced by major telecom service providers and in pursuant of the recommendations by Committee of Secretaries, it is decided to defer receipts of spectrum auction installments due from the telecom service providers from the years 2020-21 and 2021-2022," Finance Minister Nirmala Sitharaman had said in the cabinet briefing.

The deferred amounts, according to Sitharaman, would be equally spread over the remaining installments.

( With inputs from IANS )