Govt to lose Tk 32cr annually
The Bangladesh Telecommunication Regulatory Commission has recently slashed the annual licence fee for the interconnection exchange operators by 50 per cent which will cause more than Tk 32-crore yearly revenue loss of the government, officials concerned said.
The BTRC’s latest amendment to the ICX guideline in last week said that the new annual licence fee would be Tk 1.25 crore from previous Tk 2.50 crore and applicable from 2014.
The government approved the proposal to reduce the annual licence fee of ICX operators following a proposal from the operators as they are running out of business, BTRC officials said.
In 2010, there were only three ICX operators in the country and the number increased to 26 by 2013 following a government decision to award ICX licence in line with increasing international gateway licence, said the BTRC officials.
They said the government issued a huge number of IGW and ICX licences on political consideration which affected the market.
‘It was impossible to sustain for the excessive number of operators for a shallow market. So the government decided
to reduce the annual charges to help those ICX operators,’ said a BTRC official.
In 2008, the BTRC had awarded four IGW, three ICX and two IIG licences. The regulator had proposed at best 10 more licences, but the government last year awarded 25 IGW, 23 ICX and 34 IIG licences on
political consideration which made the
market vulnerable, the BTRC officials said.
Earlier in the last week, the BTRC slashed the annual licence fee for the IGW operators to Tk 3.75 crore from previous Tk 7.50 which will cause a Tk 108.75-crore yearly revenue loss.
-With New Age input
