Govt. Has Not Accounted For AGR Dues Payment In Budget 2020-21: DEA Secy

The government has not accounted for the adjusted gross revenue (AGR) related dues that it has sought from mobile service providers for both FY20 and FY21.

“We have not considered AGR dues of telecom companies while making budget calculations in FY21 as the matter is subjudice,” Secretary, Department of Economic Affairs, Atanu Chakraborty said at the National Executive Committee Meeting of Federation of Indian Chambers of Commerce and Industry.

About 15 companies are liable to pay the government about Rs 1.47 lakh crore in past dues. Of this, Rs 92,642 crore would be over unpaid licence fees, and another Rs 55,054 crore over outstanding spectrum usage charges.

Bharti Airtel, Vodafone Idea, and Tata Teleservices have jointly filed a modification application in the Supreme Court seeking more time to pay their statutory dues.

In its revenue budget, the government on February 3 has increased the revenue estimate from the debt-ridden telecom sector by over two-folds to Rs 1.33 lakh crore for 2020-21 under communications head.

It expects a revenue of Rs 58,686.64 crore under communications head in the current fiscal year against budgeted amount of Rs 50,519.8 crore in 2019-20.

The Supreme Court, in October last year, had upheld the government’s position on including revenue from non-core businesses in calculating the annual AGR of telecom companies, a share of which is paid as licence and spectrum fee to the exchequer.

In the case of Bharti Airtel, the liabilities add up to nearly Rs 35,586 crore, of which Rs 21,682 crore is licence fee and another Rs 13,904.01 crore is spectrum usage charge dues (not including the dues of Telenor and Tata Teleservices).

Airtel, which recently raised $3 billion through Qualified Institutional Placement (QIP) and convertible bonds route, is scheduled to announce its third quarter results on Tuesday.

Vodafone Idea, which is staring at unpaid statutory dues of Rs 53,038 crore, including Rs 24,729 crore of spectrum dues and Rs 28,309 crore in licence fee, has already warned of shutdown if no relief is given.

Most of the remaining liability is with state-owned BSNL/MTNL and some of the shut/bankrupt telecom companies.―Money Control