Beleaguered service provider Vodafone Idea on Tuesday paid ₹3,043 crore to the Department of Telecom (DoT), while Bharti Airtelmade a payment of ₹1,950 crore as did Reliance Jio with ₹1,053 crore, towards deferred spectrum dues, sources said.
Also read:Vodafone Idea says it will pay AGR dues to DoT
These dues are mainly instalments for airwaves bought by telcos in the previous auctions, and are not related to AGR liabilities.
The Tata group, on the other hand, made an on-account payment of ₹2,000 crore to the DoT towards dues related to adjusted gross revenue (AGR). This is in addition to the ₹2,197 crore the group had deposited with the government on February 17.
Also read: Vodafone Idea says it will pay AGR dues to DoT
Tata Teleservices Ltd. and Tata Teleservices (Maharashtra) Ltd. said in a statement they had made the payment “in good faith and as a matter of abundant caution towards licence fee, spectrum usage charges and applicable interest, penalty and interest on penalty.”
The on-account payment is subject to reconciliation after the conclusion of the process of computation and verification being conducted by the DoT spanning a period beginning FY07 and spread across 20 circles. As per the DoT’s estimates, the Tata group’s statutory dues are about ₹14,000 crore.
Vodafone Idea is struggling to pay its estimated AGR-related dues of ₹53,000 crore and has, till now, paid about ₹3,500 crore.
The company has already cautioned that its ability to continue as a going concern would depend on a favourable outcome of its modification plea in the Supreme Court. Additionally, last month, in a letter to the Telecom Secretary, it had expressed its inability to make these payments without government support.
In fact, Vodafone Group CEO Nick Read will be travelling to India this week ahead of the next Supreme Court hearing on the AGR issue on March 17. He has requested a meeting with Telecom Minister Ravi Shankar Prasad on March 6.
