The Empowered Group of Ministers on Spectrum (EGoM), headed by Finance Minister P. Chidambaram, on Monday recommended that a one-time fee should be charged from all existing telecom companies which hold more than 4.4 MHz of spectrum.

The EGoM also recommended that the one-time licence fee should be charged prospectively from October 2012. The one-time licence fee would be levied from the day the union Cabinet approves the recommendation.

Telecom operators who wish to retain excess spectrum will have to make staggered payments in annual installments, while those who do not wish to pay the additional licence fee will have to surrender the excess spectrum beyond 4.4 MHz.

The EGoM also recommended that the licence fee of companies whose telecom licences stand cancelled but they have no criminal charge against them should be refunded.

The recommendations have already been sent to the Union Cabinet, which will take the final decision. Incumbent telecom companies will pay the licence fee on 16th of October.

The Department of Telecommunications (DoT) had given the Cabinet four options on one-time fee to decide on: no fee at all; levy a one-time fee on spectrum held by incumbent operators; impose a fee on spectrum held beyond
4.4 MHz; and levy a fee on spectrum possessed beyond spectrum of 6.2 MHz.

According to existing licence policy, new telecom companies will have to pay a minimum of Rs 14,000 crore for comparable set of airwaves that incumbent operators paid Rs 1,658 crore for.