Bharti Airtel on Saturday stumped up an additional Rs 8,004 crore and claimed that it had squared up all its telecom dues owed to the Centre on account of licence fees and spectrum usage.
The Sunil Mittal-owned company claimed that the latest payout was made over and above the Rs 10,000 crore it had deposited with the department of telecommunications (DoT) on February 17.
The government has estimated Bharti Airtel’s dues at over Rs 35,000 crore.
In a filing with the stock exchanges, Bharti Airtel said it had carried out an elaborate self-assessment from the financial year 2006-07 up to December 31, 2019 and computed the unpaid sum at Rs 3,004 crore.
“We have also deposited an additional sum of Rs 5,000 crore as an ad-hoc payment (subject to subsequent refund/adjustment) to cover differences, if any, arising from the reconciliation exercise with the DoT,” the note said.
The company claimed that after the latest payout, it was in full compliance with the Supreme Court order of October 24 last year that had rejected the telecom industry’s arguments against the formula for the calculation of adjusted gross revenues (AGR) based on which telecom licence fees and spectrum usage charges are computed.
At present, the licence fee has to be computed separately for each circle in which the telecom player operates. The licence fee is calculated at the rate of 8 per cent of the AGR which includes the universal service obligation (USO) levy of 5 per cent.
The proceeds from the USO levy go into a fund from which money goes out to finance the rollout of telecom services in rural areas where a company finds it infeasible to operate without some support.
The spectrum usage charges range between 3 and 8 per cent of AGR depending on how much spectrum the telecom entity has in the telecom circle.
The Rs 10,000 crore that the Mittal-owned company had paid included the dues of Telenor Ltd which has been merged with it. The amount included a sum of Rs 500 crore that was paid on behalf of Bharti Hexacom, an Airtel subsidiary which provides telecom services in Rajasthan and the North East.
Bharti holds a 70 per cent stake in Bharti Hexacom. Another 30 per cent is held by Telecommunication Consultants India Ltd (TCIL), a government of India enterprise.
Airtel’s payout now leaves Vodafone Idea as the only major telecom entity that has failed to pay its AGR dues before the revised March 17 deadline set by the Supreme Court. The DoT has computed Vodafone Idea’s dues at over Rs 53,000 crore.
On February 14, the apex court had slammed the telecom companies for trying to wriggle out of the court-mandated obligation to pay AGR dues of Rs 1.47 lakh crore from 15 telecom entities, several of which have ceased operations.
The government has received Rs 23,701 crore so far as AGR dues till Saturday with the latest payment of Rs 8004 crore by Airtel in its second instalment.
