Bharti Airtel chairman Sunil Mittal on Thursday met telecom minister Ravi Shankar Prasad and sought a cut in taxes and levies for the sector, amid the “unprecedented” AGR crisis.
Mittal said Airtel is committed to complying with the Supreme Court order on adjusted gross revenue (AGR) dues, and asserted that the company will make balance payment “expeditiously”.
“AGR is an unprecedented crisis for industry, which is being dealt with by the government,” he said.
Mittal further said the industry was heavily taxed and suggested a cut in taxes and levies for sector.
He said Airtel has time till March 17 to make the balance payments, adding that the company will pay its dues “much before that”. The company on Monday paid Rs 10,000 towards statutory dues. Its total dues stand at around Rs 36,000 crore.
He said the government was fully focused towards the digital sector, and all discussions so far indicate that “government is alive to the situation… the AGR hit that has come in, also needs to be dealt with.”
Asked whether the issue of setting floor price for tariffs also figured at the meeting with the minister, Mittal said that this subject was in Trai’s domain. “But it is also true that the industry’s revenue has collapsed and that needs to go up. We talked of rationalisation, reduction of taxes, levies, this has been our demand for a long time...the regulator has been supporting it,” Mittal said.
Mittal and Vodafone Idea chairman had met finance minister Nirmala Sitharaman on Wednesday.
In a sign of state intervention, the government will look to strike a balance between the compliance of the Supreme Court order on statutory dues, ensuring health of the sector and consumer interest, PTI said quoting s government official.
The official, who did not wish to be named, said that telecom companies have already paid about Rs 16,000 crore in AGR dues, and some have assured more payments in 7-8 days. Vodafone Idea on Thursday paid Rs 1,000 crore more to the Department of Telecommunications (DoT) towards its statutory dues, a senior official said. The company had paid Rs 2,500 crore to the government towards AGR dues on Monday. In all, it owes Rs 53,000 crore to the telecom department.
The DoT source said notices would also be sent to Tata Teleservices for the recovery of full dues in a day or two. The company had paid Rs 2,197 crore to the government on Monday, while DoT’s calculations peg the outstanding amount at over Rs 14,000 crore.
PTI said telecom companies’ unpaid licence fees amount to Rs 22,589 crore, while interest and penalties take the total liability to Rs 92,641 crore. Licence fee is the major component of the total Rs 1.47 lakh crore AGR dues owed by both operational and non-operational telecom companies to the government till July 2019.
Besides licence fees, telecom companies owe Rs 55,054 crore in spectrum usage charges (SUC), according to estimates prepared by the DoT.
Out of the total unpaid basic licence fee, telecom companies that are operational collectively owe around Rs 16,746 crore, according to the estimates prepared by the DoT in July 2019. The unpaid licence fees of Bharti Airtel was assessed at Rs 5,528.52 crore and Vodafone Idea Rs 6,870.69 crore.
Another source told PTI the DoT has found that circle offices have not followed uniform process and have been “cherry picking” figures submitted by the operators in the calculation of AGR dues.
The telecom department will verify telcos’ claims of lesser AGR dues by initiating random “test checks” before March 17, sources said. The “test check” will happen for all telecom firms but will start with those claiming they have already made full and final settlement towards their statutory liabilities. The exercise will help the department assess the gap between telcos’ claim of what their AGR dues are and its own estimates.
