Nepal Telecom to pay Rs 350m in royalty dues
KATHMANDU, JUN 11 -
Nepal Telecom (NT) has decided to pay Rs 350 million in frequency fee dues to the government, although Nepal Telecommunications Authority (NTA) says the company’s total frequency fee dues stand at Rs 810 million.
“Our assessment shows that the fees do not exceed Rs 350 million,” said an NT board member. “But if the government says we should pay more, we will talk to NTA and proceed accordingly.”
NT has already paid Rs 100 million to NTA as frequency fees and its board meeting on Friday approved the management’s proposal to pay additional Rs 250 million. “We will pay the amount by Monday or Tuesday,” said a senior NT official.
According to the company, there has been confusion over frequency fees as the regulator has also included the fees for spectrum used for taking public telecom services to rural areas at different times. NT has been using 32.2 MHz cellular frequency — satellite, cellular and microwave.
However, NTA Chairman Bhesh Raj Kanel said NT has to pay the amount that NTA has determined. “If it does not pay all the dues, we will ask the reason behind it and also seek its calculation,” he said.
A committee, formed by NTA a few months ago, had fixed the fee after studying different types of spectrum being used by NT. But NT has been saying that
the fee was too high than its estimation and has asked for waiver in fees for spectrums used to expand telecom service in rural areas.
An NTA official said NT can be given the waiver in the charge for spectrums used during 1999-2000 and 2002-2003. “Since the government expanded rural telecommunication service with a special programme in these years, the government can slash the fees up to some level,” an official said. Recently, the Ministry of Finance also asked the Ministry of Information and Communica-tions and NTA to collect outstanding dues from NT and Ncell.
According to NTA, Ncell is all set to clear its committed royalty dues of Rs 356.58 million, but United Telecom Limited is least interested in clearing its dues worth Rs 1.26 billion.
Source: The Kathmandu Post
