TRAI has recommended to the Government to allow it to have a certain percentage of the annual license fee paid by telecom service providers and cable operators to the government.
The revenue base of the telecom service providers is about Rs.55,000 crore and those of the cable service providers is about Rs.15,000 crore. With an annual share of 0.05 percent on this revenue base, TRAI will be able to meet its recurring expenditure and also
have a provision for capital expenditure. This will make TRAI independent of government funding.
At present, all expenditure of TRAI is met through the grants from the Government of India. TRAI Act provides for constitution of a TRAI general fund in which the grants received from the government and other receipts in the form of fees and charges etc., if any, are to be credited.
The TRAI Act provides legal authority to TRAI to frame regulations for levying fees and charges as a source to generate its own fund. In several countries, the source of revenue for the telecom regulatory authorities is mostly the license fees, spectrum fee, numbering fee, and regulatory fees, etc. In India also, regulatory authorities like SEBI and IRDA derive their revenue through cess and fees. SEBI and IRDA are self-sustaining in the sense that they are able to generate adequate amount of revenue by virtue of the financial autonomy available to them. TRAI has also asked the government to provide similar financial autonomy to it.
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