New Delhi: The Congress on Saturday accused the Modi government of collusion with India’s top telecom operators to allow them to fleece Rs1.60 lakh-crore from an estimated 112 crore prepaid mobile phone users by raising tariff by 40% to 50% instead of paying the “adjusted gross revenue” (AGR) dues to the government from own pocket.
Its spokesman Randeep Singh Surjewala (in pic) said the telecom companies have piled up the AGR dues by not paying to the government for the past 20 years on account of 3% spectrum charges and another 8% on licence fee and the government has allowed them to recover these dues from the prepaid customers.
He said the government sought to defer recovery of the ADR dues while an intervention by the Supreme Court made it permit the telecom companies to raise their cellphone tariff and data usage charges that amount to Rs 35,561 crore per annum. In the remaining four-and-a-half years of the Modi government’s tenure, they will make the prepaid customers pay an extra amount of Rs1,60,028 crore.
Surjewala said the government’s leniency towards the telecom operators could be seen from the Union Cabinet chaired by PM Modi on November 20 deferring recovery of Rs42,000 crore of the “spectrum auction instalments” for 2020-21 and 2021-22. The beneficiaries are Airtel Bharti, Vodafone-Idea and Reliance Jio.
He said only after the Supreme Court on Friday pulled up both the government and the telecoms with a threat of contempt for defying its earlier order for recovery of Rs1.02 lakh-crore ADR that the Department of Telecom (DoT) issued an order to the operators to pay the dues by Friday midnight.
Surjewala said the prepaid cellphone users are the ordinary hard-working Indians who are being fleeced at the instance of the Modi government after it could not help the telecos in not paying the huge dues they had piled up over the past 20 years.
He posed three questions, including what is the quid pro quo of Modi government to defer the recovery of Rs1.02 lakh crore ADR due from the telecom firms as per an order issued by a junior functionary of the DoT on January 23 over which the SC has now issued contempt.
Surjewala also asked why deferment of the spectrum auction installments of Rs42,000 crore for the two years by the Union Cabinet and why the government allowed 40% hike by the telecos to pay the ADR dues instead of paying from own pocket.
