The Bangladesh Telecommunication Regulatory Commission on Tuesday asked 23 international gateway operators, most of which got licences on political influence,
to pay dues worth around Tk 500 crore by August 26.
BTRC officials said the commission had taken the move as most of the operators failed to submit their revenue sharing for two consecutive quarters.
In January–March period the total dues of the private IGWs, excluding state-owned Bangladesh Telecommunications Company Limited, stood at around Tk 150 crore, said the officials.
They said in the second quarter, April to June, the total outstanding for the private IGWs stood at around Tk 350 crore.
‘We have sent letters to the 23 IGWs today and rest of the operators will be served the notice by tomorrow,’ a senior BTRC official told New Age on Tuesday.
He said all 29 IGWs failed to pay the entire revenue sharing amount for January–June period.
‘We have relaxed the payment system for the IGWs but they are still not paying the revenues in time,’ he said.
‘If we count the BTCL dues, then the total dues for two quarters will be around Tk 850 crore,’ said another BTRC official.
In 2008, the BTRC awarded four IGW, three ICX and two IIG licences. The regulator had proposed at best 10 more licences, but the government in last year awarded 25 IGW, 23 ICX and 34 IIG licences, and now the total number of gateway licences stands at 91.
At present the government receives around Tk 1,000 crore from the IGW operators as yearly revenue. The new 25 IGW licences could hardly make an increase in the revenue.
They also said the BTRC was yet to get more than Tk 1,000 crore worth licence renewal fees from the IGW operators.
The recent IGW licensees got political back-up and do not care to comply with the relevant laws properly, the officials said.
For example, Roots Communication Ltd, First Communications Limited, Vision Tel Limited, Ratul Telecom Limited and Digicon Telecommunication Limited have connections either with the ruling party or its allies, they said.
The telecom officials said the companies were given several show-cause notices for violating rules and not sharing the revenues but nothing happened because of their highly placed political connections.
The BTRC in a recent move proposed the posts and telecommunications ministry to lower the international incoming call charges to 1.5 cents from existing 3 cents to facilitate the operators.
-With New Age input
