The Bangladesh Telecommunication Regulatory Commission has recently asked the international gateway operators to submit performance bank guarantee amounting not less than Tk 7.5 crore in line with latest changes in the relevant rules. The operators have to submit performance bank guarantee according to a given format by November 30 and withdraw the previous one to ensure the PGB for net two years, said the BTRC directive issued last week.
According to the latest amendment to the IGW guideline, an operator has to maintain performance bank guarantee of an amount to pay all the dues for volume call processed by the operator.
The performance bank guarantee serves as security deposit for fulfilling the licensing conditions of the operators. If the operator fails to meet any commitment 10 per cent of the performance bank guarantee will be deducted as punishment, said the previous PBG condition.
The latest addition to the conditions also include, the commission may encash the performance bank guarantee to any extent to realise the outstanding dues as well.
When the total performance bank guarantee is enchashed, then the commission will take necessary steps to cancel the licence, it added.
The BTRC move came after a number of IGW operators, mostly backed by ruling party politicians, repeatedly fail to submit the revenue share to the BTRC on time, said officials concerned.
They said most of the newly-licensed IGWs were not paying the BTRC money as well as the money of interconnection to other operators.
The BTRC recently came down heavily on the IGW operators and blocked 10 of those on September 26 for their outstanding dues of Tk 275 crore.
The telecom regulator also reduced the revenue sharing time for the IGW operators to bi-monthly basis from previous quarterly basis where the payment has to be made in the first 20 days after each deadline.
The BTRC in July sent a proposal to the telecommunications ministry to slash the call rate and government revenue sharing from IGW operators.
The telecom regulator proposed for lowering the international incoming calls to 1.5 cents from existing 3 cents and lowering the revenue sharing for international gateway operators.
If the government endorses the proposal, it will lose Tk 1,073 crore in revenues every year.
According to the BTRC data, the country records around 55 million minutes of international incoming calls daily out of which 35 million minutes are legal.
-With New Age input
