Revenue from communication services pegged at Rs 98,995 crore

New Delhi: The government expects a revenue of Rs 98,994.93 crore from communication services in fiscal 2017 that includes proceeds from spectrum auction and other fees levied by the Department of Telecom (DoT).

The estimated receipts from communication services for next year is around double of the revised estimates for the current financial year at Rs 56,034.35 crore.

The government had earlier estimated a revenue of Rs 42,865.62 crore in 2015-16.

As per the Budget proposals presented by Finance Minister Arun Jaitley on Monday, the receipt from communication services for 2016-17 is Rs 98,994.93 crore.

"The arrears of the previous years and receipts from fresh auction are also included in the Budget Estimates 2016-17," the Budget document said.

The DoT plans to commence the spectrum auction by June-July. Sectoral regulator Trai has already proposed a base price for sale of spectrum in seven bands that could fetch up to Rs 5.36 lakh crore.

The government fetched about Rs 1.10 lakh crore from the spectrum auction held in March 2015.

The Budget document said receipts under 'other communication services' mainly relate to one-time spectrum charges levied as per the recommendations of Trai, auction of 1800 MHz and 900 MHz spectrum and receipts from 800 MHz spectrum.

Also DoT collects recurring licence fees from various telecom operators and gets one time entry fees from new operators.

The Budget said barring a few services, the licence fee is collected based on percentage share of the operators adjusted gross revenue (AGR) and includes a component of Universal Access Levy.

"The AGR in turn is influenced by factors like tariff, customer base, competition, etc. The collection from licence fee depends on the rate of licence fee, tariff and growth of the telecom service sector in the country," it added.

Spectrum charges are levied by DoT on service providers, for usage of spectrum and are calculated either as a percentage of their AGR depending upon the quantum of spectrum assigned for their network or at flat rates or on the basis of formulae (for others), it added.