ISLAMABAD: The Pakistan Telecommunication Authority (PTA) has received deposit amounting to Rs6.17 billion (equivalent to $27.92 million) for spectrum assigned to Ufone through an auction held in 2021.

The amount has accordingly been deposited in Federal Consolidated Fund (FCF). With this deposit in FCF, the cumulative deposit by PTA in FCF during the current financial year, ie, 2022-23 has reached Rs29.15 billion (equivalent to $134 million).

Last week, the PTA received Rs11.43 billion (equivalent to $52.44 million) against third annual installment of license renewal fee from CMPak Limited (Zong) in line with payment terms of the license renewed in the year 2019. The amount was deposited in FCF.

The PTA has so far deposited over Rs330 billion in FCF, received from cellular mobile license renewals and spectrum auction since 2019.

The government has budgeted Rs50 billion for 3G/4G license renewal as well as 5G under the head of non-tax revenue for the current fiscal year 2022-23 against Rs45.43 billion budgeted for the last fiscal year which was later revised to Rs100 billion.

According to the budget documents 2022-23, under the head of income from property and enterprise (Pakistan Telecommunication Authority (Surplus), the government has projected to generate Rs9 billion in the current fiscal year against the budgeted Rs4 billion for the last fiscal year which was later revised to Rs3 billion for 2021-22.

Copyright Business Recorder, 2022