SC orders telecom companies to pay dues to DoT within 3 months

In another setback to telecom companies, the Supreme Court has ordered companies to pay dues to the Department of Telecom within three months, CNBC-TV18 reported.

The SC had on October 24 had upheld the definition of Adjusted Gross Revenue (AGR) calculation as stipulated by the DoT.

The court held that all revenues, except for termination fee and roaming charges, will be a part of the AGR while telcos argued that non-telecom, non-core revenues should not be a part of the AGR.

SC noted that not only the original charges, but principal interest and penalties on delayed payments would also be payable.

This means that telecom companies will have to shell out as much as Rs 92,642 crore to the government. More than half of these dues are owed by Bharti Airtel and Vodafone Idea.

AGR is the usage and licensing fee that telecom operators are charged by the DoT. It is divided into spectrum usage charges and licensing fees, pegged between 3-5 percent and 8 percent, respectively.

As per DoT, the charges are calculated based on all revenues earned by a telco – including non-telecom related sources such as deposit interests and asset sales. Telcos, on their part, insisted that AGR should comprise only the revenues generated from telecom services.