WorldLink planning to not pay Rs 9 billion royalties to government

KATHMANDU: WorldLink Communications, which has also been selling television broadcast signals to its internet service customers without obtaining a license for the past eight years, has been found not even paying the royalty as per the National Broadcasting Regulations.

WorldLink has not yet paid the royalty amount that the broadcasters are required to pay each year as transmission and distribution fees at the rate of two percent of annual income.

According to a source at the Ministry of Communications, WorldLink has to pay around Rs 9 billion including fines.

It has been a long time since the Department of Information and Broadcasting had issued a letter to Subisu and Vianet to pay Rs 1.5 billion and Rs 380 million respectively as royalties in accordance with the same regulation.

However, the Department has not been able to issue a letter to WorldLink, which has not paid Rs 9 million in revenue.

After the case of WorlLlink not paying Rs 4 million as Rural Telecommunication Fund and royalty reached the court through the Ministry, the Supreme Court ruled that WorldLink should pay the royalty amount.

Even though Nepal Press published the news of illegally broadcasting television without paying royalty for 10 years with proof, WorldLink moved the court instead.

Evidence has been found that Rs 9. 67 billion should be recovered from the company which has been defrauding billions of revenues through internet services and television broadcasting by taking the state bodies under its grip.

Now, a question has been raised whether the leadership of Ministry of Communications and Information Technology would stay mum with the pressure of WorldLink or would they collect the revenue as per the law and stop the illegal broadcasting.

The details of the evidence collected by Nepal Press by carrying out an investigation with the help of a ‘research team’ of experts is presented here.

Since last year, Nepal Press has been publishing the news about the irregularities in Nepal’s telecommunication sector and television broadcasting with evidence.

In some cases, legal action has been taken against the culprits, while in some cases of irregularities, the cases are sub-judice in the court.

It has been seen that the Nepal Telecommunication Authority, the Ministry of Communication and Information Technology and the Department of Information and Broadcasting have not taken any initiative to collect TSC, royalty, RTDF fees, transmission and broadcasting fees from WorldLink for the past 10 years.

WorldLink Communication Limited had been illegally operating IPTV: Internet Protocol Television for more than a decade.

Nepal’s Broadcasting Law does not allow to sell and distribute set-up boxes to organizations that do not have a broadcasting permit.

The government has been giving approval to WordLink to sell set-up boxes since 2016.

So far, WorldLink has imported and distributed more than 1.2 million set-up boxes. There is evidence that WorldLink has distributed set-up boxes to more than 900, 000 customers and has been charging monthly and yearly television broadcasting fees.

WorldLink received IPTV broadcasting license in 2018 after other broadcasting institutions filed a complaint against it for illegally broadcasting IPTV and importing and distributing set-up boxes.

It has also been found that WorldLink has been collecting broadcasting fees from customers without paying broadcasting and distribution fees to the government.

WorldLink also did not pay royalty and RTDF fee due under the Telecommunication Act, 2053 to the government.

A representative of an IAP service provider said that WorldlLnk has adopted a strategy of defrauding the state by financially undermining other competing service providers and television broadcasters and creating unhealthy competition.

The representative claimed that WorldLink has the support of some employees of Nepal Telecommunication Authority, Ministry of Communication and Information Technology and the Department of Information and Broadcasting.

The government of Nepal is losing revenue as WorldLink has not been paying broadcasting and distributing fees to the government.

On the other hand, an environment of unhealthy competition has arisen in the field of television broadcasting. Similarly, the huge investment of the state has also been put at risk.

Meanwhile, NITV Streamz, a wholly owned entity of WorldLink Communication Limited, is illegally broadcasting television programs such as Video on Demand through OTT.

According to the existing legal system, one has to pay a license fee to the government to broadcast television through OTT in Nepal.

Likewise, one has to pay a license fee of Rs 200, 000 for each video

To operate video on demand service, one has to take a license by paying a license fee of Rs 200, 000 for each video.

After operating the service by taking license, the transmission and distribution fee must be paid to the Nepal government at the rate of two percent annually based on the total income.

But NITV Streamz has been operating OTT and Video on Demand services for a long time without taking any license and causing loss of millions of rupees to the state.

According to experts in this field, such illegal activities should be stopped immediately.

Government officials said that it is discriminatory to impose millions of fines to Subisu Cable Net Pvt. Ltd and Vianet Communications which have been broadcasting programs by taking license.