The Bangladesh Telecommunication Regulatory Commission is in the dark about the status of Robi's merger, as the operator has not fulfilled all the conditions placed by the regulatory body for the union.

Robi and Airtel had announced the completion of their merger on September 16 last year after the Office of the Registrar of Joint Stock Companies and Firms gave it the go-ahead.

Accordingly, Robi started merging its networks with Airtel, and in a few regions, such as Chittagong and Sylhet, the process has already been completed.

In its approval, the BTRC clearly mentioned that the merged entity will have to collect an 'Order of Merger Licence' from them for the merger process to be complete.

The Order of Merger Licence is the ultimate certification of a merger between the telecom companies, without which the merged entity cannot start joint commercial operations or amalgamate their networks, said commissioners of the regulator.

“Without this document, the merger will not be declared illegal but it is one of the conditions of the BTRC. We have scope to take action against this ignorance,” said a commissioner requesting anonymity.

There are other conditions that have been left unfulfilled too, such as the return of 5 megahertz of spectrum in the 900 band and the clearing of charges.

Subsequently, the BTRC on February 12 sent a letter to Robi, asking the operator to clear its position within ten days.

“Robi has written back but the contents of the letter cannot be shared,” a BTRC official said.

Ekram Kabir, spokesperson of Robi, declined to comment on the matter.

Robi is yet to pay Tk 108.83 crore in merger fees and spectrum amalgamation charges to the telecom regulator, according to the BTRC letter.

The government fixed Tk 427.35 crore as merger fee and on November 20 last year Robi paid Tk 318.52 crore and gave a written commitment that the rest of the money will be paid accordingly. They are yet to do so, the letter said.

“And Robi did not seek to pay the dues in instalments either,” BTRC officials said.

But Robi officials said they have paid the full amount.

Robi has deducted 15 percent VAT and 10 percent advance income tax and paid the rest, a senior official of the operator said, asking not to be named. “They do not have the authority to deduct VAT from the dues,” said Md Jahurul Haque, legal commissioner of the BTRC.

Though there is a case ongoing in the High Court about the issue of VAT, the operator cannot deduct VAT by itself from the principal amount, he said.

Another condition was that the merged entity will have to clear all dues of the regulator or the government or any other entities before declaring the merger. The BTRC has no knowledge of this being done by Robi, the letter said.

The High Court gave exclusive authority to the telecom regulator on some technical issues and without complying with those the merger procedure will not be completed, said Khandaker Reza-E-Raquib, legal consultant of the BTRC.

Earlier on November 24, the BTRC's engineering and operation department wrote another letter to Robi in which the Order of Merger Licence issue was mentioned.

The letter said that both Robi and Airtel violated the Telecom Act and the government's International Long Distance Telecom Services Policy.

Both the operators have started bypassing the interconnection exchanges to send calls from 016 to 018 or 018 to 016, which they cannot do before the completion of the merger, ICX Association said in a letter to the BTRC.

The bypassing will bring about a loss in revenue to the tune of Tk 4 lakh every day to the government.

Another senior official of the BTRC said they want to help the newly merged entity, which has become the country's second largest operator, to bring real competition into the market.

“But Robi itself is creating lots of hurdles to helping them,” he added.

In the merged entity, Axiata, the parent company of Robi, will hold a 68.7 percent stake, Bharti Airtel 25 percent and Axiata's old partner NTT Docomo 6.3 percent stake.

The merged entity now has 3.22 crore active customers; individually, Robi had 2.44 crore users and Airtel 77.25 lakh.