TELECOM PANEL OKAYS SLAB-BASED FINE STRUCTURE IN RS 1 LAKH-RS 50 CRORE RANGE New Delhi The Financial Express | Mint

| Business Standard | The Economic Times | The Telegraph | Deccan Chronicle | The Asian Age The Telecom Commission on Thursday approved a slab-based penalty structure, ranging from Rs 1 lakh to Rs 50 crore, to be levied on operators for not meeting rollout obligations, violating radiation norms, and offering 3G services in circles where they do not have the required licences, among others. The Commission did not take up the issue of national mobile number portability. Till date, operators were being fined Rs 50 crore per circle for even minor violations like late submission of papers and absence of placards on mobile towers. Industry estimates that the Department of Telecom (DoT) has imposed total penalties of Rs 6,850 crore on telecom companies based on the flat rate of Rs 50 crore per violation. "The idea is to rationalise the penalty structure so the fee is decided based on the pattern of violation," said MF Farooqui, secretary, DoT and chairman Telecom Commission. Warnings would lead to a penalty of Rs 1 lakh, minor violations Rs 1 crore, moderate Rs 5 crore, major Rs 20 crore and severe Rs 50 crore, he added. However, the Commission has not finalised the definition of various violations like minor, major, severe, etc. Farooqui also said that the Election Commissions nod is not required to approve this policy change. As per the broad contours of the new penalty system, all violations would be examined in light of their impact on the national exchequer, customers, national security, policy guidelines. Repeat violations and the impacted service area(s) will also be taken into consideration while imposing any levy. Moreover, after examining these parameters, violations will be categorised under functional classifications to measure their impact like company level, commercial, network, equipment, technical, service, operations, security and finance. Commission officials said details on the new system that would reflect which violation might attract which slab of penalty would be revealed later.