The Department of Telecommunications (DoT) has sent notices to telecom operators seeking payment of dues on licence fees worth more than Rs.26,000 crore over the course of the last one month.

This is being contested by the service firms. Of this, about Rs.24,000 crore is due to the one-time charge for the additional spectrum that the operators hold beyond 4.4 Mhz.

DoT field units have now sent notices to Vodafone and Airtel demanding Rs.877 crore and Rs.1,200 crore respectively from them. DoT has also sent notices to Reliance Communications.

The licence fee consists of two parts - a one-time fee and a revenue share, which is basically a part of annual revenue that operators have to pay to the government and comprises about 10% of the total revenue.

"There is no rationale behind the government sending notices to us. We have paid the licence fee that was due from us. We are studying the notices and we will contest them," said an official of one of the companies that was sent the notices.