Rcom, Tata Tele ‘claims’ are false

Private telecom firms Reliance Communication and Tata Teleservices have been found making false claims and drawing excess subsidy from the Universal Service Obligation Fund for providing services in rural areas. Inspections in various circles revealed that their claims included urban lines (known as Direct Exchange Lines or DELs), which fall within municipal limits, as rural lines. This was not eligible for subsidy, official sources said.
“The proportion of such wrong claims by Universal Service Providers (USPs) in certain areas was found to range from 48 per cent to 70 per cent of DELs claimed. Action to disallow subsidy was taken in accordance with terms of agreement,” Mr Shantanu Consul, the Administrator of USO Fund, said in a note to the department of telecom.
In a particular case, Reliance claimed subsidy amounting to about Rs 7.63 crores for 12,469 DELs installed in four districts of Kerala Service Area, the Administrator’s note said. “On physical verification, it was found that a large number of these DELs are working in urban areas,” it said. Similarly, Tata Teleservices has also been found giving false claims. One of the example was in village Bharthana in UP (East) for the quarter ending December 2006 where it claimed to have installed 647 rural DELs.