Idea says no blips found after audit of its books

Mobile phone service provider Idea Cellular on Wednesday said no discrepancy was found during a special audit of the company.

The audit, which was commissioned by the Department of Telecommunications (DoT), was submitted to the government on Tuesday.

Idea managing director Sanjeev Aga said the special audit report has reported no discrepancy. “Indeed it could not have. There are tabulations of some amounts, presumably for data collection as required by DoT,” he said.

It is learnt that the total additional liability determined by the auditors for the company is around Rs 74 crore.

That is the total impact of the revised AGR (adjusted gross revenue) on account of licence fee and spectrum fee.

Around Rs 48 crore of this amount is non-payable as per a TDSAT judgement, the auditors are said to have observed.

Among the other observations of the auditor on Idea, impact of additional airtime and quantity discount given to PCOs has not been assessed, and therefore excluded from AGR.

Also, auditors have not commented on the impact of additional liability due to sharing of infrastructure on a barter basis and free airtime on handsets.

Sources said Idea did not provide full details to enable auditors to assess the additional liability on infrastructure sharing and giving free air time.   

The findings are in line with the mandated accounting standards, Aga has said. It is also strictly as per TDSAT rulings, he added.
“The view of the special auditor is not to the contrary,” according to Aga.