India's Department of Telecoms (DoT) plans to impose fines totaling Rs 1,594 crore (US$293.7 million) on five mobile network operators, after it accused them of understating revenues and hence paying lower revenue shares to the government during 2006-08.

The decision stems from an independent audit of the company accounts requested by the government in 2009 to verify that the reported revenues matched the actual figures earned by the networks.

The networks pay a percentage of their revenues which varies between 8-16% to the government for their operating license.

Citing sources at the DoT, the Economic Times said that it is expected that the fines will be as follows:

• Reliance Communications - Rs 551 crore
• Bharti Airtel - Rs 292 crore
• Vodafone - Rs 254 crore
• Idea Celluar - Rs 113 crore
• Tata Teleservices - Rs 273 core
• Tata Communications - Rs 120 crore

The networks are expected to reject the findings of the auditors and appeal against the penalties.