Telcos pay Rs 8,000 crore more

Kolkata: The Centre’s efforts to strike a balance between compliance with the apex court’s order on AGR dues and protecting corporate interest made further headway on Tuesday, with bleeding telcos making another round of payment to the government.

Vodafone Idea, Bharti Airtel and Reliance Jio cumulatively paid more than Rs 6,000 crore to the Department of Telecommunications (DoT) towards deferred spectrum dues while the Tatas said it has deposited another Rs 2,000 crore for ad hoc statutory liabilities.

The payments came as the DoT was reportedly preparing to send fresh letters to the telcos, questioning them about discrepancies in AGR dues assessed by the companies and the department.

Reports said Vodafone Idea Ltd (VIL) CEO and MD Ravinder Takkar again met telecom secretary Anshu Prakash.

After Bharti Airtel and Reliance Jio paid Rs 1,950 crore and Rs 1,053 crore, respectively, to the telecom department, VIL paid Rs 3,042.80 crore in spectrum dues for the airwaves it bought in 2014. VIL was already on the brink of bankruptcy as it was struggling to clear the adjusted gross revenue (AGR) dues.

This is the last lot of payments that telcos will make towards deferred spectrum liabilities, as the Union cabinet had last year approved a two-year moratorium on such dues.

Deferred spectrum dues are instalment payments that are made by telecom companies for airwaves bought in past auctions. This is separate from their AGR liabilities.

Tata Teleservices said it has made an on-account AGR payment of an additional Rs 2,000 crore to the DoT on March 2 "in good faith and as a matter of abundant caution" towards licence fees, spectrum usage charges and applicable interest, penalty and interest on penalty.

"This on account payment is subject to reconciliation,” the company statement said.

Last month, Vodafone Idea had made a total payment of Rs 3,500 crore to the DoT as part payment of its AGR dues. The company has pegged its AGR dues at Rs 23,000 crore against DoT's estimate of Rs 53,000 crore, including Rs 24,729 crore in spectrum dues.