Bharti Airtel prepays Rs 3,626 crore to clear 2016 spectrum dues

Bharti Airtel, one of India’s leading telecommunications service providers, announced today that it has made a prepayment of Rs 3,626 crore to the Department of Telecom (Government of India), fully clearing its liabilities for the spectrum acquired in the 2016 auction. With this payment, Airtel has settled all its outstanding spectrum dues with interest rates higher than 8.65 percent.

In total, the telecom carrier has prepaid Rs 28,320 crore in spectrum liabilities during this calendar year, the company said on December 19.

In June, the Sunil Mittal-promoted telecom operator also prepaid all its deferred liabilities for spectrum acquired in the 2012 and 2015 auctions, where the interest rates were higher at 9.75 percent and 10 percent. The prepayment for these auctions amounted to Rs 7,904 crore.

Earlier in the year, Airtel had also prepaid Rs 8,325 crore to the government, clearing part of its deferred liabilities for the spectrum acquired in the 2015 auctions. In 2015, Airtel secured 111.6 MHz of spectrum for Rs 29,130.20 crore, with an upfront payment of Rs 7,832.58 crore, as per the auction rules at that time.