The government has accused the six private direct-to-home (DTH) operators of under-reporting gross revenue and licence fees. It has slapped combined penalty to the tune of R2,200 crore on the six DTH operators as licence fees.
Sources said that in a communication to each of the six DTH operators ? Dish TV, Tata Sky, Airtel Digital TV, Sun TV, Videocon D2H and Reliance digital TV ? the ministry of information and broadcasting sent a demand notice on March 24 , giving the operators 15 days to pay up or face penalty as per the law.
As per the regulation, each DTH operator has to pay 10% of its gross revenue as licence fees annually. However, according to sources, the calculations made by the government show that the operators have been under-reporting revenue and subscriber figures over the years, a charge denied by most DTH operators.
When contacted, a senior functionary of the DTH operators association said: “Yes, we have got this notice. We are going to legally challenge it in an appropriate court and everyone is talking to everyone. There appears to be variance in the way gross revenue figures that have been derived by the government vis-a-vis us.”
Sources said as per the notices issued to the six DTH operators, the total penalty amount works out to around R2,200 crore based on the gross revenue generated by each DTH operator since their launch.
As per sources, nearly half of the R2,200-crore penalty is spread between the two oldest DTH players ? Dish TV and Tata Sky, followed by Airtel Digital TV and others.
