Five private telecom companies cheated the government by understating their revenue.

Five private telecom companies, viz., Tata Teleservices, Telenor, Videocon, Reliance Jio, Quadrant (a Videocon group firm), have understated their revenue by over Rs.14,800 crores in 2014 - 15 and have cheated the government to the tune of Rs.2,578 crore. The CAG report has stated this. By understating their revenue, these companies have cheated the government in the payment of licence fee, spectrum usage charge and ‘interest applicable on delay in payment’. As regards Reliance Jio, the cheating is done in “revenue sharing on realised forex gain”. This is not the first time that the private telecom companies are cheating the government by understating their revenues. However, the private companies continue to be the “darlings” of the government, whether it is Congress or BJP.      

[Source: Economic Times - 21.12.2017]