J Gopikrishnan on how Telecom companies avoided paying the GOI’s share of the income

Sir, When data was being charged, the usage of data was wrongfully charged and in very much disproportionately too. I was a victim of fraudulent billing by Airtel when in 2002/2003,my monthly post paid bill went up to 7000 Rupees, and i had a black berry phone and the only purpose of using data then was to check the emails. I contested this bill and said it was very unfair, but the company had its own engineers who put the entire blame on me and gave me a data usage sheet which i failed to understand. I still put up a fight and then the company started harassing me through recovery agents. Finally they agreed to settle the bill at 3500 Rupees. I ended up paying this amount though i was very much sure that i was conned. Though AIrtel tried to market their products to me later on, i never accepted their offers and i have never used airtel after that. Now, reading how much Airtel owes the government, i for once feel that the Government of India should park a dozen recovery vehicles in front of the owners bungalows of Airtel and Vodafone and others for not having paid what is due to the government. They should be shamed.