Will talk to telcos on under-accounting: Govt

NEW DELHI, INDIA: As the Department of telecommunications (DoT) has finally issued show-cause notices to Bharti Airtel, Reliance Communications, Tata Teleservices, Idea Cellular and Vodafone for under-stated revenues from 2006 to 2008, the government has today indicated that it is ready to talk.

Also read: DoT issues notice to five telcos

Union Minister for Communications and IT Kapil Sibal while responding to a query said, ''Whenever there is a show cause notice, the room for consultation is open.'' Sibal, however, declined to speak further on the issue.

DoT has given three weeks time to telcos to revert. The operators owe more than Rs 1,200 crore to the government. After an external audit, DoT accused the service providers for under accounting their revenues from 2006 to 2008 that led to loss of government exchequer.

The telcos, which received notices include Reliance Communications for Rs. 593 crore, Bharti Airtel for Rs. 292 crore, Tata Teleservices for Rs. 293 crore, Vodafone for Rs. 254, Loop for Rs. 98 crore and

Sistemsa Shyam for Rs. 63 crore.