Isps’ Books May Come Under Dot Scanner !

[Honest 836]

ISPs’ books may come under DoT scanner

Business Line l 17 Dec l New Delhi

Fallout of RCom’s revenue reporting issue.

The Department of Telecom may start auditing the account books of all the Internet Service Providers on a regular basis.

The move follows recent controversy around Reliance Communication’s revenue reporting practice whereby it was showing income from non-voice services under its Internet licence.

At present, ISP’s books are not audited by the DoT.

A senior DoT official said that the Government may start looking at Internet companies’ books to know if other operators were using their subsidiaries to take benefit of lower revenue share for ISPs. There are about 100 Internet companies operational, but most of the top ISPs are owned by large integrated companies.

Mr Rajesh Chharia, President, Internet Service Providers of India, said it may be a huge task for DoT to audit the books of all the ISPs operational in the country.

Since DoT does not audit the books of ISPs at present, the issue related to Reliance Communicatins had come to light only after a report from UBS Securities pointed out that the company had shown one set of numbers to the stock exchanges and another set of numbers to the telecom regulator.

CAG review

Meanwhile, DoT has asked the Comptroller & Auditor General’s office to look into the books of RCom to determine whether or not the company had violated revenue reporting norms. Sources said that a list of 8 auditors, on the panel of CAG, have been given to DoT.

The Central Vigilance Commission had asked the Department of Telecom to investigate alleged irregular revenue reporting by RCom. While operators do not have pay any revenue share for income earned from Internet services, they have to pay between 6 and 10 per cent of their annual revenue to the Government from mobile services.

COAI had pointed out that an operator could make huge profits by showing income from data services under the ISP licence. A Member of Parliament, who had shot of a complaint to the CVC alleging irregularities on the part of RCom, has estimated that the company may have benefited by Rs 352 crore by showing non-voice revenues under the ISP licence. RCom has denied all the allegations.

[Sadikk 301]

Bad news for Rcom.

[Honest 836]

^^^

Rcom is already under Dot Scanner.

[ssr 10]

Rcom not leaving any opurtunity in looting

Edited December 18, 2008 by ss_rakesh

[Honest 836]

Not looting, but they are the Masters of such Tactics.