TRAI for uniform licence fee of 6% by 2014

This licence fee should be brought down progressively from the existing rates to an uniform rate of 6 per cent by the year 2013-14,said TRAI chairman J S Sarma in a news conference.

Rajan Mathew,the DG of GSM operators’ association COAI,said this is a positive development,as it would bring down operators’ costs. This has been a long-standing demand of the operators,who said the total levies of the telecom sector in India were the highest in the world,at 30 per cent.

Operators pay licence fees as a revenue share of their adjusted gross revenue.