indo-asian news service
New Delhi, Dec 19: Five private telecom service providers, including Tata Teleservices, Quadrant Televentures, Videocon Telecommunication, Telenor and Reliance Jio, have understated revenues of Rs14,813.97 crore, a Comptroller and Auditor General (CAG) report said here Tuesday.
The shortfall to the exchequer was Rs2,578.83 crore.
“To sum up the verification of records of five PSPs (private service providers) by audit indicated total understatement of AGR (adjusted gross revenue) of Rs14,813.97 crore for the period upto 2014-15 and consequent short payment of revenue share to Government of India to the tune of Rs1,526.70 crore,” the report stated.
It added: “The interest due on the short paid revenue share, for the period up to March 2016 was Rs1,052.13 crore.”
The report has shown short payments by companies of Licence Fee, Spectrum Usage Charges and interest to the tune of — Tata Teleservices: Rs1893.60 crore, Telenor: Rs603 crore, Videocon: Rs48.08 crore, Quadrant: Rs26.62 crore and Reliance Jio: Rs6.78 crore.
The CAG’s findings are based on the audit of Tata Teleservices and Tata Teleservices (Maharashtra) Ltd from 2010-11 to 2014-15; Quadrant Televentures (2006-07 to 2014- 15); Videocon Telecom (2009-10 to 2014-15); Telenor group (2009-10 to 2014-15) and Reliance Jio Infocomm from 2012-13 to 2014-15. The report said exit meetings were held with all the operators where the preliminary audit findings/observations were discussed in detail.
“Operator-wise draft audit reports were issued to DoT (Department of Telecommunications) with an advance copy to the operators concerned to elicit their views/ responses to the audit observations.”
This report was prepared taking into account the reponses/replies received from the operators and the ministry.
While making the report the CAG had reached out to the management of the telecom companies to get their views, but in most cases said that the replies received were “not convincing”.
Under 9% service tax arrears recovered
New Delhi: The revenue department recovered only about 9 per cent of service tax arrears in 2016-17 even as the number of cases detected increased from the previous fiscal, government auditor CAG said Tuesday. The department had an opening balance of Rs2,658.31 crore in arrears to be realised in 2016-17, but with an addition of Rs6,176.31 crore during the fiscal the total went up to Rs8,834.62 crore. However, it could realise only Rs783.33 crore, a mere 8.87 per cent of the total recoverable, said the Comptroller and Auditor General (CAG) report, ‘Indirect Taxes – Service Tax’, tabled in Parliament Tuesday. The department disposed of demands for Rs4,285.29 crore last fiscal, ending the year with a closing balance of Rs3,766 crore as arrears that could be recovered.