The Department of Telecommunications (DoT) is expected to earn revenue of more than Rs 49,200 crore from spectrum auctions, spectrum usage charges and licence fees in the next fiscal year, up 10 percent compared to its estimated revenue in 2015-16.
A major chunk of the revenue is expected to come from spectrum auctions, a senior official in the Communications Ministry told the Economic Times.
The department is estimated to garner Rs 25,486 crore from spectrum auctions and Rs 14,464 crore from licence fees.
"We're expecting upwards of Rs 49,200 crore from 2016-17... instalments from last year's auction would be a sizeable amount," the official, who did not want to be named, told the daily.
The DoT may get over Rs 8,800 crore from spectrum usage charges in 2016-17, according to the government's estimates.
Nearly Rs 9,486 crore is expected as instalment payment for auction of 418 MHz of airwaves across bands held last year.
Fierce bidding by telecom companies saw the spectrum auction concluding at Rs 1.10 lakh crore in March 2015. The carriers were required to pay about 33 percent of the final bidding amount to the government within 10 days of the auction. The remaining amount was asked to be paid in 10 annual instalments beginning 2017.
The department is expected to get Rs 16,000 crore as upfront payment for the next phase of the spectrum auctions, which is likely to be held in June this year.
The estimated revenue for the DoT in the next fiscal year will be about Rs 4,000 crore higher than that of the projected amount for the current fiscal. By the end of December last year, the government had collected over Rs 37,000 crore in revenue.
However, the figure excludes spectrum liberalisation fee paid by Reliance Communications for 16 circles and the Rs 2,450 crore paid by Vodafone India for the merger of its subsidiaries.
