The Digital Communications Commission, the telecom department’s apex decision-making body, on Wednesday approved a cumulative penalty of Rs 3,050 crore on Bharti Airtel and Vodafone Idea for not providing points of interconnection to Reliance Jio.

“The commission has accepted Trai’s recommendation on penalty on Airtel and Vodafone Idea. It will send the same recommendation to the competent authority in the government for their decision,” telecom secretary Aruna Sundararajan told reporters on Wednesday.

Airtel and Vodafone Idea allegedly denied points of interconnect to Jio when it started mobile operations three years ago. The ruling will come as a setback for Airtel and Vodafone Idea as both telcos are making losses in a low-tariff environment while battling cheap prices from Jio.

In October 2016, Trai had recommended imposing a total penalty of Rs 3,050 crore on Airtel, Vodafone and Idea (now merged). Last month, the DCC agreed to impose a penalty on the two telecom firms. It also decided to take Trai’s logic for refusing a revision in the quantum of penalty even though the telecom sector was in a bad shape. Trai had said it could not modify its previously recommended penalty as it was bound by the Trai Act.

The penalty on Airtel and Vodafone works out to about Rs 1,050 crore each. In case of Idea it is about Rs 950 crore. Since Vodafone and Idea have now merged their businesses, the new entity will have to bear the burden of both companies.

The regulator stopped short of recommending cancellation of their telecom licences as it would lead to inconvenience to consumers.

Trai’s recommendations came on a complaint by Reliance Jio that over 75 per cent of calls on its network were failing as incumbents were not releasing sufficient points of interconnection.

Reacting to the decision, an Airtel spokesperson said: “We are extremely disappointed... the total number of POIs provided were more than sufficient for the projections provided on customers. Further, the requested POIs were provided within the prescribed time limits and were more than the numbers requested for. All these facts were presented to the authorities. It is, therefore, disheartening that those facts have not been considered.”

Vodafone Idea said: “This issue has been examined by the DoT, various parliamentary and judicial authorities with no case for any default established. From reports it appears that even the DoT committee was not unanimous and at least four committee members out of seven had differing views on the subject. Further, the jurisdiction to decide any interconnection dispute between two service providers lies exclusively with TDSAT.”