NTA renews NT's GSM license without charging any fee

KATHMANDU, May 11 :

Nepal Telecommunications Authority (NTA) -- the regulatory body of telecommunication sector - has renewed the GSM license of Nepal Telecom without charging any fee.

The board meeting of NTA held on Friday took the decision.

“We renewed the license based on the direction of the Ministry of Information and Communications (MoIC),” Kailash Neupane, spokesperson of NTA, said.

MoIC) on Thursday sent a letter to the NTA, directing it to renew NT´s license for the time being.

The government has formed a committee under the chairmanship of MoIC Secretary Suman Prasad Sharma to study the renewal fee that NT needs to pay to NTA. The committee has been given three months to complete the study.

Though NT has to pay Rs 20 billion for renewing its license as per the existing policy, the state-owned telecom operator will now have to pay the amount to be fixed by the committee.
Once the committee fixes the amount, NT, Ncell and Smart Telecom will be paying the same amount to renew their license whenever it expires.

Source: Republica