After Supreme Court’s rap, telcos pay ₹14,697 crore to DoT

Telecom services providers including Bharti Airtel, Vodafone Idea & Tata Group on Monday cumulatively deposited ₹14,697 crores as part payment of their adjusted gross revenue (AGR) dues with the Department of Telecommunications (DoT). While Bharti Airtel paid ₹10,000 crores, Vodafone Idea paid ₹2,500 crores & the Tata Group deposited ₹2,197 crores.

Additionally, Vodafone Idea committed to pay another ₹1,000 crores by the end of this week.

The payments follow last week’s Apex Court order that asked the managing directors & directors of the companies to show cause why contempt proceedings should not be initiated against them for failing to pay even a “single penny” to the government despite an October 2019 court judgement.

Bharti Airtel, in a letter to the Department of Telecommunications, said that the ₹10,000 crores had been paid on behalf of Bharti Airtel Limited, Bharti Hexacom Limited & Telenor. 

The company added that it was in the process of completing a self assessment exercise expeditiously & would make the balance payment upon completion of the same, before the next date of hearing in the Apex Court.

The next hearing is slated for March 17, 2020.

In a filing to the stock exchanges, Vodafone Idea said its Board had met on Monday to take stock of the assessment made by the company on the amount that could be paid immediately towards compliance with the Apex Court order.

The Company said that “Based on the overall review of the position, the Board has authorised the Company to immediately pay to DoT a portion of the dues calculated based on AGR, aggregating to a sum of ₹2,500 crore today & a further ₹1,000 crore before the end of the week".

Vodafone Idea said that the Board would take further stock of the situation to see how additional payments could be made.

"An urgent oral application made this morning before the Hon’ble Apex Court for directions to be issued to the Department of Telecommunications to not take any coercive steps for recovery of AGR dues was not entertained by the Hon’ble Court," it added that.

Tata payment
Meanwhile, in a statement, Tata Teleservices said, “Tata Teleservices Limited (TTSL) & Tata Teleservices (Maharashtra) Limited (TTML) have made a payment of ₹2,197 crore... to the DoT towards License Fees & Spectrum Usage Charges,” 

It added that TTSL & TTML had also submitted to Department of Telecommunications the details of calculations in support of the payment.

According to to the Department of Telecommunications' assessment, Bharti Airtel’s liabilities for licence fee & spectrum usage charge stand at about ₹35,586 crore, while that of Vodafone Idea & Tata Teleservices are about ₹53,000 crore & ₹13,823 crore, respectively.

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