The federal auditor has calculated the under-reporting of revenue based on actual earnings of the telecoms dur... Read More

NEW DELHI: The Comptroller and Auditor General (CAG) has claimed that six major telecom companies - Reliance Communications, Tata, Airtel, Vodafone, Idea and Aircel - have allegedly understated gross revenue of over Rs 46,000 crore for a period between 2006-07 and 2009-10 and denied the government its share of income which has been estimated at more than Rs 12,400 crore.

Different from its earlier report on the 2G spectrum, where computation of the losses were presumptive based on policy flaws, the CAG has now calculated the losses on inspections of the books of accounts of these telecom firms and on actual earnings.

The telecom companies, when contacted by TOI on Tuesday, refused to comment.

The CAG was prevented from auditing these entities since 2009 when the private service providers moved different courts challenging the mandate of the auditor. However, after the apex court finally settled the issue in favour of the CAG by an order of April 2014, these companies were compelled to share their accounts for inspection.

The federal auditor has calculated the under-reporting of revenue based on actual earnings of the telecoms during the above mentioned period as reflected in their books. The auditor is belie- ved to have slammed the department of telecom (DoT) for overlooking the irregularities and misreporting facts.

The timing of the DoT's oversight coincides with the then UPA government's launch of a firefighting operation in 2010 after the CAG's observations in the 2G spectrum report. The auditor had calculated a presumptive loss of Rs 1.70 lakh crore due to awarding of 2G spectrum on first-come, first-serve basis and failure to exploit avenues of revenue generation by auctioning the airwaves.

A source said the revenue share of the government based on understated gross income has been more than Rs 3,750 crore on account of licence fee and Rs 1,460 crore for spectrum usage charges. The interest on non-payment of the two has been calculated at more than Rs 7,200 crore, up to March 2015.

