Kumar Mangalam Birla ready to hand over Vi stake to govt entity

Kumar Manglam Birla, the chairman of Aditya Birla Group, has written to the government saying that he was ready to “hand over stake” in Vodafone-Idea (Vi) to a government entity, CNBC TV18 reported.

In a letter to Cabinet Secretary Rajiv Gauba on June 7, Birla sought clarity on adjusted gross revenue (AGR), adequate moratorium on spectrum dues and floor pricing adding that without immediate and active government support VIl’s operations will be at an “irretrievable point of collapse”.

He also cited that investors had also sought clarity on these issues.

He said that, with a “sense of duty” towards 27 crore customers, the telecom giant was willing to hand over its stake to Public Sector Unit (PSU), a government entity or a domestic financial entity.

“Happy to work with the government to urgently explore all possible solutions, without consideration of our private interest,” he said.

Birla also revealed that the telecom company was yet to approach any Chinese investors. He said that foreign investors wanted to see a clear government intent to have a three-player telecom market.

The Supreme Court (SC) of India, on July 23, rejected Bharti Airtel, Vodafone Idea and Tata Teleservices’ application seeking re-computation of the adjusted gross revenue (AGR)–related dues.

In 2020, the apex court gave 10 years’ time to telecom service providers struggling to pay Rs 93,520 crore of AGR-related dues to clear their outstanding amount to the government.

However, in their plea, the telecoms majors raised the issue of alleged errors in the calculation in the figure of AGR-related dues demanded by the Department of Telecommunication (DoT).

Burdened with the claim from the DoT, the telcos appealed to the Supreme Court to provide the option of staggered payments over either 20 years or 10 years. Vodafone-Idea argued that the only way to repay such a huge sum would be to ‘earn and pay’. Moneycontrol