The Department of Telecommunications (DoT) has drafted a proposal to provide the government a 25% share in mobile licences within 3 years of issuing the permit for launching telecom services, reports the Economic Times.

The proposal was spurred by the recent stake sale of a new licensee Swan Telecom, which sold 45% of its stake to Arabic telecom company Etisalat, for $900 million. The government would levy the new charge in the form of a spectrum usage charge.

DoT was under pressure from the finance ministry to opt for an auction of 2G spectrum or increase the entry licence fee from Rs 1,651 crore ($351m). However, DoT did not accept both the options and instead proposed the levy of 25% on income from stake sales.

According to DoT guidelines on mergers and acquisitions, new licensees cannot sell 100% before three years, even though they can sell stakes. If the proposal is applied to Swan, it would have to pay nearly Rs 1,000 crore ($225m) to the government. Other new telecom licensees, such as Unitech are in advanced stages of discussions for selling up to 26% their stakes.

This proposal will be applicable for the first three years from the date of allocation of the universal access service licence (UASL) on 2G services. The auction guidelines for 3G are being finalised and no similar charges would be levied on the licensees applying for UASL after winning the 3G spectrum bid. However, the new companies who receive the UASL through the 3G auction also would not be able to sell 100% stake until after three years. DoT states that the proposal aims to dissuade new licensees from selling stakes without having network, infrastructure or subscriber base, as it is like taking the spectrum cheaply from the government and then selling it at a higher value.

The pan-India UASL costs $351m, which was decided in 2003 and operators get a start-up spectrum of 4.4 MHz along with it. Telecoms are allotted more spectrum at later stages, when they reach a certain level of subscribers. X