NTA is the country´s telecom sector regulator and existing law authorizes it to collect due royalties from the telecom operators, monitor their operations and protect customers interest.[break]
However, UTL, an Indian joint venture, has repeatedly ignored call to settle the outstanding royalty dues, even though the regulator threatened to scrap its license a year ago. NTA had formally written to UTL to clear royalty dues twice and also slapped penalty of Rs 500,000 for defying its directive.
“As it still continued to turn deaf ears to our threat, we are soon requesting MoF and IRD to recover royalty amounting Rs 896 million from UTL,” said a senior NTA official.
Actually, the NTA was planning to lodge such request on Tuesday itself, coinciding with the publication of final report on ´frequency issue´ by the parliamentary Public Accounts Committee. But it postponed the plan after a sub-committee under the PAC rescheduled the program until Wednesday morning.
Kailash Prasad Neupane, spokesperson of NTA, said they were fulfilling legal requirement to take action against UTL.
NTA had already sent a letter to UTL, warning that it might lose operating license if outstanding due is not cleared as per the commitment. Instead of clearing its dues, UTL, approached the Appellate Committee against NTA directive. The committee has already rejected UTL´s plea of waiver.
Officials of NTA said the scrapping of UTL´s operating license was delayed as the regulator has not finalized ways to recover the outstanding dues and alternatives for its subscribers. “We are working out better alternatives for UTL subscribers but have not decided anything so far,” the official added.
UTL on the other hand has been claiming compensation from NTA, stating that it suffered loss of Rs 4.44 billion because the regulator did not fulfill the terms and conditions mentioned in the license.
NTA officials said UTL has so far paid just Rs 160 million, which is equal to 4 percent of the total annual income. Going by its commitment, it should have paid well over Rs 1 billion.
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