CAG Audit Report on Sharing of Revenue by Private Telecom Service Providers Presented

Transcription

1 PRESS RELEASE OFFICE OF THE COMPTROLLER & AUDITOR GENERAL OF INDIA CAG Audit Report on Sharing of Revenue by Private Telecom Service Providers Presented NEW DELHI 11 th March, 2016 The Compliance Audit Report of the Comptroller and Auditor General of India, Report No. 04 of 2016 of Union Government on Sharing of Revenue by Private Telecom Service Providers was presented in the Parliament today and hence it has become a public document. Article 266 of the Constitution of India and Sections 13, 16 & 18 of Comptroller and Auditor General s (Duties, Powers and Conditions of Service) Act, 1971 make it obligatory on the part of CAG of India to satisfy himself that the Government of India has received its complete and correct share. Further, Rule 5 (ii) of Telecom Regulatory Authority of India, Service Providers (Maintenance of Books of Accounts and other Documents) Rules, 2002 promulgated by the Government in November 2002 contains enabling provisions for verification of all the accounting records and documents maintained by the service providers that has a bearing on the Gross Revenue (GR) of the service providers by the CAG of India. New Telecom Policy-1999 (NTP-99) introduced the revenue share regime in which telecom service providers were required to pay a percentage of their Adjusted Gross Revenue (AGR) as Licence Fee (LF). Mobile operators were also required to pay Spectrum Usage Charges (SUC) for the use of the radio frequency spectrum allotted to them. As per licence agreement, (i) Access Charges actually paid to other eligible / entitled telecommunication service providers within India; (ii) Roaming revenues actually passed on to other eligible / entitled telecommunication service providers and (iii) Service Tax on provision of service and Sales Tax actually paid to the Government, and included in GR were to be excluded from the GR to arrive at AGR. The present Audit Report contains significant findings on the correctness and completeness of revenue share paid to the Government of India by M/s Bharti Airtel Limited, M/s Vodafone India Limited, M/s Reliance Communications Limited, M/s Idea Cellular Limited, M/s Tata Tele Services Limited and M/s Aircel Limited along with their subsidiaries / associates for the period from to

2 Audit observed non-compliance to the license conditions leading to short payment of revenue share to the Government. Some of the important findings in the Audit Report are: Value of promotional schemes like Free Talk time/free Air time deducted from GR Cost of promotional offers like Free Talk Time/Free Air Time (FTT/FAT) given to prepaid subscribers over and above the tariff plans submitted to TRAI was not recognised in the GR by all the six licensee companies. By giving FAT/FTT/FOC etc, the licensees were foregoing the revenue instead of booking these as expenses. Audit worked out the understatement of GR on this account to be ` crore resulting in short payment of LF and SUC by ` crore and ` crore respectively. (Paragraphs B, 4.2.2, 4.2.4, 5.2.1, 6.2.1B, 7.2.2, 8.2.1) Understatement of GR by all PSPs by non- inclusion of interest income PSPs included interest income in GR/AGR for computation of revenue share in initial years. However, subsequently all PSPs either stopped including interest income in GR/AGR for computation of revenue share or partially included interest income in GR/AGR for computation of revenue share in violation of licence conditions. Interest income not included in GR worked to ` crore resulting in short payment of LF and SUC by ` crore and ` crore respectively. (Paragraphs 3.3.1, 4.3.1, 5.3.2, 6.3.1, 7.3.1, 8.2.7) Gross Revenue reported by all the PSPs were after setting off commission/discount paid to their distributors/dealers/agents All the selected service providers reported their GR after setting off the commission / discounts, etc. paid to distributors / dealers / agents / franchisees in contravention of terms of the license agreement. Total amount set-off from GR by the operators worked out to ` crore leading to short payment of ` crore towards license fee (LF) and ` as Spectrum Usage Charges (SUC) to the Government. (Paragraphs 3.2.1A, 4.2.1, A, 5.2.3, 5.2.5, 5.2.6, 6.2.1A, 7.2.1, 7.2.4, 8.2.3) Understatement of GR by Reliance Communications Limited (RCL) through an arrangement with its subsidiary A significant share of revenue which should have been offered for revenue share by RCL was accounted in the books of Reliance Communications Infrastructure Limited (RCIL), its fully owned subsidiary and the amount was not included in GR for computation of revenue share to the Government. Total understatement of GR by RCL owing to its arrangement with its subsidiary RCIL worked out at ` crore resulting in short payment of LF and SUC by ` crore and ` crore respectively. (Paragraphs B to F)

3 Understatement of GR/AGR by all PSPs by non-inclusion of profit from sale of investment M/s Airtel, Reliance, Idea, Tata and Aircel did not include income earned from investments in GR/AGR for computation of Revenue Share. As profit from investments constituted Miscellaneous income, this had to be included for computation of revenue share to Government as per the license agreement. Audit worked out amount of non-inclusion of income from investments in GR/AGR as ` crore resulting in short payment of LF and SUC by ` crore and ` crore respectively. (Paragraphs 3.3.3, 5.3.4, 6.3.2, 7.3.2, 8.2.8) Understatement of AGR for computation of SUC Bharti, Reliance & and Tata who were providing wireline services in addition to wireless services, did not include revenue from sale/lease of bandwidth for computation of SUC though the same was included for computation of LF. Amount of revenue not included in AGR for computation of SUC comes out to be ` crore having impact on short payment of SUC of ` crore. (Paragraphs 3.4.3, 5.4.1, 7.4.3) Discounts /waivers given to post paid subscribers were netted off from revenue Deduction of discounts/waivers given to post-paid subscribers over and above the tariff plan submitted to TRAI by Airtel, Vodafone, Idea, Tata and Aircel from the GR for computation of revenue share was not in accordance with the license agreements. Understatement of GR/AGR on this account was worked out to be ` crore leading to short payment of LF and SUC by ` crore and ` crore respectively. (Paragraphs 3.2.2, 4.2.7, 6.2.2, 7.2.3, 8.2.1A) Infrastructure sharing revenue not recognised in full PSPs had arrangements with other operators for sharing of passive infrastructure. Reimbursement of expenses towards diesel expenses, security expenses, repair and maintenance expenses and electricity charges by other operators was considered as deduction in expenditure and not included in GR. As these expenditure had to be incurred irrespective of whether the towers were shared or not, and the Company benefited through additional income by sharing the expenditure.. Understatement of GR due to this deviation from license agreement was ` crore resulting in short payment of LF and SUC by ` crore and ` crore respectively. (Paragraphs 3.2.4, 4.2.5, 6.2.4, 7.2.5, 8.2.5) Understatement of GR by netting of discounts from revenue pertaining to roaming services. PSPs have arrangements with other International Operators for roaming services. Debit / deduction of Inter Operator traffic (IOT) discounts paid to International Operators by Airtel, Vodafone and Idea from revenue was against the license conditions. Understatement of GR on

4 this account was worked out to be ` crore with short payment of ` crore towards LF and ` crore towards SUC. (Paragraphs 3.2.3, 4.2.3, 6.2.3) Inconsistencies in verification of deductions claimed by PSPs by Controllers of Communications Accounts (CsCA) CsCA collect LF and SUC from all licensees of various telecom services and are responsible for confirming the veracity of the documents submitted by the PSPs in support of their deduction claims. Verification of the proofs of payments in respect of the deduction claims made by PSPs is an important pre-requisite for the accurate computation of AGR and assessment of revenue share. Audit noticed that the verification process, lacked uniformity in confirming the veracity of the documents submitted by the operators in support of their deduction claims, instances of allowing deductions without required proof documents, allowing deductions which were outside the scope of the license conditions, allowing deductions twice on the same claim, disallowing claims of deductions despite submission of required documents by the PSPs, allowing irregular deductions on inter-divisional adjustments of ` crore, allowing deductions in advance etc. Audit also observed delays in submission of all the required proofs by PSPs leading to delay in completion of verification process. (Paragraphs 9.2.1, 9.2.2, 9.2.4, 9.2.7, 9.2.8, 9.2.9) Deficiencies in the assessment of final revenue share by DoT The Licence Finance (LF) wing in DoT is responsible for the assessment of GR and final computation of the revenue share payable by the Licensees considering the collection details and verification reports received from the Offices of the CsCA. Final demands of various LSAs of Vodafone Group for the years to raised by DoT were under assessed by ` crore as various items of revenue which were disclosed by the Auditors of the Company through reconciliation statements annexed to AGR statements as well as schedules annexed to Profit and Loss Account etc., were overlooked. Lack of coordination between the Licence Finance (LF) wing and the Wireless Planning Finance (WPF) division of DoT, the two units responsible for the final assessment of revenue share, led to non consideration of certain revenue items by WPF wing which were added back by LF wing taking into account the verification reports of CsCA and disclosures in audited financial statements of PSPs resulting in underassessment of SUC by WPF wing. Assessment of licence fee for NLD, ILD and ISP for the years to in respect of DWL / Aircel was not carried out despite lapse of more than five years. It was also observed that inconsistencies in the clarifications issued by DoT regarding deduction claims on account of international roaming charges resulted in non-uniformity among CsCA regarding allowance/disallowance of deduction claims on account of International Roaming charges and possible loss of revenue to the exchequer in terms of revenue share. (Paragraphs , , and )

5 Financial Implication: Verification of records of six PSPs indicated total understatement of ` crore in GR having corresponding impact of ` crore on LF and ` crore on SUC. The interest on this short/ non-payment of LF and SUC works out to ` crore. The calculation of interest was based on the rate prescribed in the Licence agreement i.e. 2 per cent above the interest was based on the rate prescribed in the License Agreement i.e. 2 per cent above the Prime Lending Rate of State Bank of India existing as on the beginning of the financial year and the period considered for the calculation was from the end of the concerned financial year up to March The interest has been compounded monthly as prescribed in the licence agreement. The details are as shown below: (` in crore) Airtel Vodafone Reliance Idea Tata Aircel Total LF SUC Total (LF+SUC) Interest BSC/RSJ/SJ/TT