Five mobile operators face legal action

Bangladesh Telecommunication Regulatory Commission (BTRC) is set to take legal action against five mobile phone operators for failing to deposit into the exchequer Tk 100 crore of unused prepaid balance found in SIMs that were blocked between 2008 and 2014.

The telecom regulator recently took the decision and asked its respective division to initiate the process, said Md Jahurul Haque, legal commissioner of BTRC.

The regulator issued a directive in this regard last year and only the market leader, Grameenphone, deposited Tk 7.33 crore in February this year.

"We might take punitive measures against Banglalink, Robi, Airtel, Citycell and Teletalk under the telecom act," said Haque.

As Airtel has merged with Robi, the latter will have to hand over the money on behalf of both.

"This is users' money. As no user came forward to stake their claim, all of this money belongs to the government exchequer. There is no alternative," said Haque.

Another senior BTRC official said some of the operators earlier tried to argue that it was their money since the customers could not be found.

Now the operators are saying that they have no information about the unused balance and the exact number of SIMs, he said.

"This will not be tolerated. One operator has already paid the money against the unused balance, so the rest will have to do the same," he added.

Earlier, BTRC asked every mobile phone operator to share information about the unused balance in SIMs blocked for misdeeds, mostly the running of illegal voice over internet protocol services.

But the five operators did not share the data, prompting BTRC to issue notices seeking a reason for it, said the official.

The operators have not given a reply and BTRC took into account this "reluctance" to go for legal measures, he added.

BTRC will take the final approval on the issue in the next commission meeting, said Haque.

It is unable to convene a meeting at present as it needs three commissioners, including the chairman, to do so while three commissioner posts of the five-member body are vacant. The operators, upon a BTRC directive, blocked around two crore connections.

The regulator presumes that most of these have unused prepaid balance, amounting to around Tk 100 crore.

Grameenphone blocked 2,540,666 SIMs as they were allegedly being used in making illegal calls. Most had unused prepaid balance.

After Grameephone handed over the money, BTRC allowed it to resell those SIMs. The operator moved quickly to settle the issue for having used up most of the number combinations under its "017" series.

While handing over the money, Grameenphone informed BTRC that it found Tk 9.37 crore and deposited Tk 1.22 crore from it with the National Board of Revenue in the form of 15 percent value-added tax, which is charged from the usage of subscribers.

It then said to have kept for itself Tk 81.44 lakh, which is 10 percent of the remaining amount, reasoning that it had already paid this amount to various government authorities in different taxes against the SIMs.

Robi too took permission from BTRC to resell a huge number of either previously used or blocked SIMs.