DoT may slap Videocon’s AGR dues of Rs 1,376 crore on Bharti Airtel  

In an affidavit filed before the Supreme Court on the status of statutory dues paid by telecom operators, the Department of Telecom (DoT) said it is planning to slap Videocon Telecommunications Ltd’s adjusted gross revenue (AGR) dues of Rs 1,376 crore on Bharti Airtel.

However, Bharti Airtel has questioned the demand, and said that the DoT letter has no basis in law and the company can’t be held liable for past dues of Videocon Telecommunications.

According to the affidavit, Videocon Telecommunications had sold endure spectrum of 30 MHz to Bharti Airtel in 2016.

As per Supreme Court directions, Bharti Airtel and Vodafone Idea, had to pay 10 percent of their AGR dues demanded by the DoT by March 31, 2021.

The apex court had asked telcos to make 10 percent of the upfront payment of their dues by March 31 to the DoT while the remaining amount is to be paid over a ten-year period starting April 1, 2021.

However, there is some ambiguity over the court order as telcos maintain that they have already paid more than the 10 percent of their AGR dues while DoT opined that the operators will have to pay 10 percent of the total dues by March 31, 2021, irrespective of what they have already paid.

The ambiguity has befuddled the industry calculation with many of the telcos reaching out to their legal counsels to make sense of the court’s order in this regard.

As per the government calculations, total AGR liability of Bharti Airtel is Rs 43,980 crore, Vodafone Idea is Rs 58,254 crore, Tata group is Rs 16,798 crore, BSNL is Rs 5,835.85 crore and MTNL is Rs 4,352.09 crore.

Bharti Airtel has paid the government Rs 18,004 crore, VIL (Rs 7,854 crore), Tatas (Rs 4,197 crore) and Reliance Jio has cleared its entire dues with payment of Rs 194.79 crore.

Anil Ambani-owned Reliance Communications owes Rs 25,194.58 crore, Aircel (Rs 12,389 crore) and Videocon Telecommunications (Rs 1,376 crore) but these companies are under liquidation process. Companies like Loop Telecom, Etisalat DB and S Tel, which jointly owe the government Rs 604 crore, have shut down their India operations. cnbctv18.com