BTRC's revenue to fall short

The telecom regulator is once again set to miss its revenue target by Tk 2,000 crore after it failed to hold a spectrum auction last fiscal year as per their plan.

Bangladesh Telecommunication Regulatory Commission has collected Tk 3,990 crore in fiscal 2015-16 and after subtracting expenses, deposited about Tk 3,700 crore to the state coffers, said senior officials.

The finance ministry has set Tk 6,000 crore as the revenue target for the BTRC. About Tk 3,000 crore was expected from the spectrum auction.

"We collected around Tk 4,000 crore and another Tk 200 crore will be added to it in the next two weeks from international gateway operators and interconnection exchange operators," said an official of the BTRC's finance division.

The deadline for the international gateway operators and interconnection exchange operators to forward the BTRC's share of revenue is July 20; after that they will have to pay a fine.

The regulator has a huge amount of fund outstanding in the market, but it cannot collect the sum as the operators are government-owned or politically-backed, he said.

For instance, Teletalk, the state-run mobile operator, paid only Tk 60 crore for 3G licence although the total fee was Tk 1,627 crore.

Another state-owned telecom company, Bangladesh Telecommunications Company Limited, owes BTRC Tk 1,600 crore, he added.

BTRC collects annual spectrum charges, licence fees from the telecom operators, downlink charge of television channels and different charges from service providers.

But its main chunk of revenue comes from sharing of 5.5 percent of the mobile operators' gross revenue.

The regulator also gets 40 percent of the IGWs' earnings that come from incoming international calls.

At present, it has about Tk 1,000 crore outstanding with different gateway operators.

In fiscal 2014-15, the BTRC's revenue slumped to Tk 4,100 crore against the target of Tk 13,660 crore.

In fiscal 2013-14, it collected Tk 10,085 crore, thanks to the 3G spectrum auction and 2G licence renewal fees.