A board meeting of Nepal Telecommunication Authority (NTA) today decided to renew the GSM mobile licence of Nepal Telecom without charging any fee, for the time being.
Yesterday, Ministry of Information and Communication had sent a letter to the telecom sector regulator to renew Nepal Telecom’s license for now. “The board has decided on the ministry’s direction,” informed spokesperson for authority Kailash Neupane.
The authority is likely to renew the licence on Sunday.
The board decided that the licence will be renewed and fix the fee after a study. A committee under communication secretary has been formed to conduct the study within three months.
The authority will make some legal amendments before deciding the licence renewal fee. It will amend the regulation after studying popular provisions in other countries.
However, under the current policy, Nepal Telecom has to pay Rs 20 billion for license renewal.
Earlier, Parliamentary Public Accounts Committee (PAC) two years ago had earlier directed the government to collect the fee for the first licence renewal and decide the fee for subsequent renewals based on international practices.
