New Delhi: The non-tax revenue collection from the telecom sector has been pegged 33 per cent lower at Rs 82,443 crore for the coming fiscal, according to the Budget documents, which also placed the revised FY25 realisations a tad higher than originally expected at the beginning of the fiscal.
The revised estimates for FY25 place revenue from telecom (under the head ‘other communications services’) marginally higher at Rs 1.23 lakh crore against the originally-expected 1.20 lakh crore.
The estimates for FY26, however, have been set at Rs 82,442.84 crore, which is 33 per cent lower than FY25.
Asked about the reason for estimates being pegged lower for FY26, Telecom Minister Jyotiraditya Scindia said the revenue from telecom that goes straight to the consolidated fund of India is mainly from two heads, the AGR dues and spectrum auctions.
“In the last two years, we have auctioned a huge amount of spectrum, with 5G coming into play. And it’s only when that spectrum gets saturated that you will see demand for much larger lots of spectrum. And I think it will take a couple of months in the coming,” Scindia said.
Spectrum auction will be scheduled based on the industry’s requirements for radiowaves, the minister said.
“The AGR revenues are pretty apparent to everyone in terms of the inflows, and those are pretty much cast in stone, so there’s no question about that income coming in. So, I think that together, sets the tone for the revenue numbers going forward,” he added.
The allocation for state-owned telecom corporation Bharat Sanchar Nigam Ltd is about Rs 34,257 crore in FY26, 53 per cent lower than Rs 72,528 crore in the revised allocation for FY25.
“What I want to emphasise here is that if you look at the allocations of this year, it is again based almost out of a budget of 90,000 crore, almost 72,000 crore is basically spectrum, and once that spectrum is given to BSNL, which has been given in this fiscal, which means prior to March, then there is not that much of a requirement for additional spectrum in the years to come,” Scindia said, adding that “therefore that allocation obviously becomes much lower because that spectrum will not be required by BSNL”.
On whether the industry can expect a round of spectrum auctions in 2025, Scindia said a lot would depend on demand. If there is a demand, then “yes, absolutely”, he assured.
“But there has been a huge refarming of spectrum that has happened. The Cabinet has just approved almost about 676 megahertz of spectrum, which has been refarmed from the Ministry of Defense and Ministry of Space. The total requirement by IMT till 2030 is about 2000 megahertz. We’ve already auctioned close to about 900 megahertz, and this 676, will take us close to about 1600 megahertz,” he explained.
That leaves another 400 megahertz of auction requirement as such until 2030, he said, adding that “the committee of secretaries is looking at this aspect, which may also be refarmed in the days to come”.
