Airtel, Vodafone Idea, Jio pay Rs 5,000 crore in AGR dues: Report

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Reliance Jio, Bharti Airtel, and Vodafone Idea (Vi) have paid around Rs 5,000 crore to the Department of Telecom (DoT) in licence fee and spectrum usage charges for the January-March quarter.

"The three telcos have made the payments without any delay. The January-March quarter dues need to come in by March 25, if there is a small balance, that is paid by end of March since it is the financial year closing," the Economic Times reported, citing an industry executive.

Unlike this quarter, cash-strapped Vi had earlier delayed payments in the previous quarters. As per the numbers of the last quarter ended December 31, Airtel had paid around Rs 1,600 crore, Jio about Rs 2,000 crore, and Vi paid Rs 1,000 crore.

All three did not respond to ET’s queries, the report said.

Bharti Airtel and Vodafone India have pending AGR dues of about Rs 26,000 crore and Rs 50,400 crore, respectively. The Supreme Court on September 1, 2020, gave telecom companies 10 years to repay their AGR dues, putting an end to a case that was being watched closely for its implications for the telecommunications sector.

While giving the 10-year timeframe, a bench of Justices Arun Mishra, S Abdul Nazeer and MR Shah directed telcos to pay 10 percent of the AGR dues upfront.

Airtel and Vodafone Idea have, however, challenged the amount calculated by DoT in Supreme Court. The companies have claimed that there are arithmetic errors, double counting of revenue, inadmissible deductions and unaccounted payments in the calculation done by the Department of Telecommunications (DoT).

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