Reliance Jio underreported revenue by Rs 64 cr, claims draft audit report

A draft audit report has claimed that Reliance Jio Infocomm, the LTE mobile network operator owned by Reliance Industries, underreported its revenue by Rs 63.77 crore for three fiscal years to March 2015. This was done by not including realised foreign exchange gains, because of which it paid lesser licence fee to the government.

The five-page report, which was prepared by director general of audit for post and telecommunications, has been sent to the telecom company and the department of telecom (DoT), and their responses are awaited.

The draft audit said that Jio had "realised foreign exchange gain amounting to Rs 63.77 crore, during fiscal years 2012-13 to 2014-15 as per annual financial statements and revenue reconciliation statements the company furnished along with annual revenue statements. The forex gains were Rs 1.29 crore in FY13, Rs 41.67 crore in FY14 and Rs 20.81 crore in FY15."

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However, this forex gain was not included in the adjusted gross revenue (AGR) for the purpose of revenue share, thus paying less licence fee to the government.

Not including forex gains in AGR is a violation of license conditions, says the rules.

However, ET sources claimed that all these doubts that the auditor raised had already been settled at the Telecom Disputes Settlement Appellate & Tribunal (TDSAT), first in April 2015 and then in December.

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"Under both judgements, the tribunal had clearly upheld the methodology used not just by Jio but the industry in regards to the treatment of forex gains/losses while computing the AGR," said one such source.

On the other hand, the draft audit report said that even though explanation was given, the auditor was not satisfied with it.

(Image source: Voice&Data)