Department of Telecom to invoke bank guarantees to recover Reliance Communications’ spectrum dues

New Delhi: The Department of Telecommunications (DoT) is invoking bank guarantees to recover Reliance Communications’ (RCom) latest spectrum dues and is set to issue a notice asking why the airwaves shouldn’t be withdrawn, adding to the woes of the telco whose chairman Anil Ambani faces jail for not paying a vendor.
“The last day of payment of Rs 21 crore was March 13, which included a grace period of 10 days. We have now asked the related department to send a show-cause notice to the telco,” a DoT official said. A telco is allowed 20 days to respond to a show-cause notice.
Failure to pay the government may ultimately lead to withdrawal of spectrum against which payment was due, the official said. In this case, it is the 800 MHz band in Mumbai, purchased in 2015 and used by Reliance Jio Infocomm under a spectrum sharing pact with RCom.