TRAI invites EoI for second round of empanelment of DAS auditors

Telecom Regulatory Authority of India (TRAI) has invited expression of interest (EoI) for the second round of empanelment of auditors to carry out audit of Digital Addressable Systems (DAS).

Interested parties will have to submit a complete proposal in a sealed envelope to Praveen Saxena, Senior Research Officer (B&CS), TRAI not later than 3 pm on 29th November 2019 for the second round of empanelment.

TRAI said it is in process of finalising a Comprehensive Audit Manual. The Audit Manual is proposed as a guidance document for stakeholders and the audit agencies. In case of any discrepancy between the provision of interconnection Regulations, other extant Regulations or Tariff Order and the Audit Manual the provisions as per the regulations/ tariff Orders shall prevail.

So far, the TRAI has empanelled 13 auditors to carry out the audit work. These auditors include, 1) Mukesh Sharma, AMAA & Associate; 2) R.K.Gupta, Senior Partner, Bansal R. Kumar & Associates, 3) Hiren Upadhyay, Partner, BDO India; 4) CA Anil Kumar Jain, Borkar & Muzumdar; 5) Peeyush Vaish, Partner, Deloitte Touche Tohmatsu India LLP; 6) Rahul Shah, Associate Partner, Ernst & Young LLP; 7) Jitendra Kumar Sarawgi, Managing Partner, J.K. Sarawgi & Company; 8) Arihant Garg, Partner, KPMG; 9) Jeenendra Bhandari, Partner, MGB & Co LLP; 10) Koushik Balasubramanian, Senior Director, Protiviti India Member; 11) Laxmikant Saini, Partner, S. M Saini & Associates; 12) Gaurav Mittal, Partner, S.K. Mittal & Co., Chartered Accountants; and 13) Vishwanath Kumar Seshadari, Director, Xestion Advisor.

To become eligible, the audit agency will have to be a company registered under the Companies Act 2013, as amended from time to time OR an LLP under the Limited Liability Partnership Act, 2008 OR a registered Partnership Firm OR a proprietorship firm registered with ICAI as audit firm;

It shall have a minimum average annual turnover of Rs. 50 Lakhs in the immediate two preceding financial years. It shall have experience, either on its own or through any of its partner/employee of (i) at least one year in the audit of Digital Addressable System (DAS) [Subscriber Management System (SMS)/ Conditional Access System (CAS)] (technical and/or subscription) of distributors; or (ii) at least one year in the audit of billing and metering and/or payment and prepaid charging system involving the use of software tools in sectors such as telecom, power, gas etc.;

It also needs to have at least three full-time professionals from among Chartered Accountant (CA)/ Company Secretary (CS)/Cost Accountant (CoA)/ Graduate Engineer. At least one of the three professionals should be a Chartered Accountant (CA)/ Company Secretary (CS)/Cost Accountant (CoA). Such professional(s) should be continuously and full-time partners or employee working with the Audit Agency since at-least six months on the date of application;

The company/ LLP/ firm or any of the professionals should not have been disqualified or blacklisted by any department of State Government/Central Government or any Bank or Financial Institution or any statutory body or any professional body. Further, the Company/ LLP/ firm or any of the professional should not have been held guilty of criminal misconduct at any point of time.

The applicant should be well-versed with the broadcasting and distribution industry and must be proficient in understanding the network head-end setup, customer and system lifecycle knowledge and integration of customer details in SMS and CAS.

The applicant should be independent of broadcasting service providers and should not have any direct or indirect involvement or interest, in the design, construction, operation or maintenance of software such as CAS/SMS/Middleware/EPG or hardware/electronic devices used in digital addressable systems of a service provider.

Further, neither any director/ partner/key managerial personnel of the applicant firm nor its any audit personnel should have held in last one year or should be currently holding the similar position in the company which is involved in the business of broadcasting and distribution activities. The Audit agency shall submit an undertaking to this effect along with the proposal.