PTA Fails to Recover Regulatory Dues of Rs. 393 Million from Telecom Operators

The Pakistan Telecommunication Authority (PTA) failed to recover annual regulatory charges from telecom operations worth millions of rupees. According to Audit documents available with Propakistani, the telecom operator failed to collect an amount of Rs. 393.31 million in the year 2020-21 on account of Annual Regulatory Dues (ARDs) from telecom operators. According to the documents, the amount is owed under various heads. An amount of Rs. 37.4 million is owed in terms of Basic Telephony, and pending dues of Rs. 14.9 million are owed in terms of the Annual License Fee (ALF) – Mobile. Moreover, the telecom regulator is also owed Universal Service Fund (USF) charges of Rs. 227.2 million. Research and Contribution of Rs. 78.5 million was also not paid by telecom operators in the year 2020-21. Annual Spectrum Fee (ASF) of Rs. 26.6 million is also owed to PTA, in addition to Annual License Fee (ALF) – LDI of Rs. 8.4 million is also yet to be recovered by the telecom regulator. As per the audit documents, this was pointed out to the management in November 2021. The PTA said in its reply that most of the outstanding amounts were challenged by the operators in various courts. The audit document says that the reply was not acceptable as in all cases the courts remanded back the petitions to PTA for review which had not been done by the PTA management till day. Further, National Telecom Corporation (NTC) agreed to make payment of all outstanding due which had not so far been recovered. The audit recommends that cases may be reviewed to be placed before the courts for recovery from the defaulters.