The Chief Vigilance Commission (CVC) has asked the DoT to scrutinize the alleged under reporting of revenues in the long distance service revenues of Bharti Airtel. The move follows a complaint filed by MP, Ajay Chakraborty.

In a letter, Chakraborty had alleged that Airtel was charging much higher from regional and smaller operators. Additionally the gain earned from such deals was not appropriately passed on to the government, said the letter.

Chakraborty alleged that by withdrawing the discounts offered initially to smaller operators, Bharti Airtel had put them at a disadvantage. Trai has set a limit of charging upto 65 paise for carrying STD traffic by an operator. Bharti in act was charging less than other operators by way of discount. But it pulled out the discount later on.

According to Chakraborty, Bharti’s actions has caused loses amounting to Rs 100 crore to the government. He further alleged that certain DoT and Trai officials may also be party in the misdeed.

Bharti though has outrightly refuted these allegations.

Bharti spokesperson said “as a responsible corporate, following the highest standards of corporate governance, Bharti Airtel strictly adheres to the regulatory requirements and processes. We have already provided the relevant information regarding the matter to both TRAI and DoT and will be happy to provide further details in case the same is required. Our carriage charges for the NLD business are well within the ceiling provided by the authority and are as per market practice & non-discriminatory.”

One finds it really incidental to know random interests of political leaders and others on issues related to telecom. In most of the cases the timing of the allegations coincide with some national level important development. Last year, Amar Singh had demanded surrendering of additional spectrum by incumbent GSM operators just when his party was to support the UPA government over nuclear issue. Now the letter by the MP emerges when the country is about to elect a new government.

Ironically these leaders have failed to notice that the loss to government has been much more due to delay in spectrum auctioning for 3G and WiMAX services.