BENGALURU: Finance Minister, Nirmala Sitharaman today said that the government is actively engaging with telecom companies after the recent Supreme Court judgment and that the government is waiting for the position that the Department of Telecom (DoT) wants to take on the matter.
The Supreme Court has directed the stressed telcos including Vodafone Idea and Airtel to pay over 1 trillion rupees to the DoT as Adjusted Gross Revenues (AGR) by March 17. “The government has been actively engaging with the telecom companies immediately after the order and subsequently also after the review and recent judgment. I will wait to hear on behalf of the government from DoT what the department’s take is,” the Union Finance minister added.
Funds devolution to states in two instalments
Sitharaman said that that the funds’ devolution to the states including cess compensation and GST revenues will be issued to the states in two instalments. She added that the GST collection and cess compensation has dipped for the September-October, 2019 period, but the pending funds were released before December.
“We shall clear the surplus tax and cess collection for the states in two instalments. The problems of fewer funds grants to the states arose from a dip in collections,” the minister added. The finance ministry said that the Centre has already released the grants of urban local bodies to states and that GST compensation will be issued soon.