A customer at a Vodafone store in Mumbai. Photo: AFP

With Indian telecom companies struggling to keep themselves afloat, they are now seeking a waiver on goods and services tax (GST) on spectrum payments and other levies. However, Reliance Jio Infocomm, owned by India’s richest man Mukesh Ambani, has a dissenting view on the matter.

The Cellular Operators Association of India (COAI) has asked the government to adjust tax credits of 350 billion rupees (US$4.88 billion) in pending payments such as license fees and spectrum charges, Press Trust of India reports.

It said that since telecom firms’ have had to spend more capital while revenues have fallen substantially, creating liabilities across the sector.

It cited a report by the Telcom Regulatory Authority of India, stating that telecom industry revenue fell 32% between April-June 2016 and April-June 2018. COAI claims that this had led to the blocking of approximately 350 billion rupees of telecom operators’ capital in the form of excess GST credits.

However, since there is no industry consensus on the issue – with Reliance Jio expressing dissent, the government may be reluctant to agree to the request.

In a related development, Vodafone Idea chairman Kumar Mangalam Birla met officials in the PM’s Office to try to defer payment of spectrum charges. Vodafone Idea has to pay 95 billion rupees ($1.33 billion) in spectrum charges this year, the Economic Times reports.

———-

Asia Times has relaunched on www.asiatimes.com . Download our brand new native App for a sweeping selection of geopolitical and business news throughout Asia.

Join the Conversation

93 Comments

  1. really nice

    This is really beneficial data my friend. you are a very good writer . i hunger to helping with you my website as well. foresee me what do you contemplate approximately it

    buy youtube views

    Thankyou again for posting such good content. Cheers

  2. I’m not sure where you’re getting your info, but great topic. I needs to spend some time learning more or understanding more. Thanks for fantastic info I was looking for this information for my mission.

  3. Hello there, I discovered your site by the use of Google at the same
    time as searching for a similar subject, your web site
    got here up, it seems to be great. I’ve bookmarked it in my google bookmarks.

    Hi there, just was aware of your weblog via Google, and found that it’s really informative.
    I’m going to watch out for brussels. I will be
    grateful should you proceed this in future.
    Many folks will likely be benefited out of your writing.
    Cheers!

  4. Howdy! This blog post couldn’t be written any better!
    Reading through this article reminds me of my previous roommate!
    He always kept talking about this. I will forward
    this article to him. Pretty sure he’ll have a good read.
    Thanks for sharing!

  5. hello there and thank you for your info – I’ve definitely picked up something new from right here. I did however expertise several technical points using this site, since I experienced to reload the site many times previous to I could get it to load properly. I had been wondering if your web hosting is OK? Not that I’m complaining, but slow loading instances times will often affect your placement in google and could damage your quality score if ads and marketing with Adwords. Anyway I’m adding this RSS to my email and can look out for a lot more of your respective fascinating content. Ensure that you update this again very soon..

  6. I really love your website.. Pleasant colors & theme.

    Did you create this site yourself? Please reply back as I’m trying to create my very own site and would love
    to know where you got this from or what the theme is called.
    Appreciate it!

  7. Hey! This is kind of off topic but I need some advice from an established blog.
    Is it tough to set up your own blog? I’m not very techincal but I can figure things out pretty quick.
    I’m thinking about creating my own but I’m not sure where to
    begin. Do you have any tips or suggestions? Thank you