NEW DELHI: With both Bharti Airtel and the Tata Group having officially declared self-assessed AGR dues now, it is becoming increasingly clear that a new set of legal wrangles is set to begin.
Both the companies have declared pending dues at significantly lower levels than the Department of Telecom’s (DoT) estimates and Vodafone Idea’s statements so far indicate that it is likely to do the same.
In October last year, the Supreme Court had ordered over a dozen telecom companies, both defunct and operational, to pay a cumulative Rs 1.47 lakh crore in pending dues after it held that Adjusted Gross Revenue (AGR) should include proceeds from licence holders’ non-telecom businesses too.
AGR is the basis on which levies like license fees and Spectrum Usage Charges (SUC) are calculated and the worst affected by the judgment are Vodafone Idea (VIL), Bharti Airtel and Tata Teleservices, who owe Rs 53,038 crore, Rs 35,586 crore and Rs 13,823 crore respectively, according to DoT estimates.
However, the last two weeks have seen Bharti Airtel and Tata Telecommunications declare just a fraction of the government’s estimates. In the case of Tata, the group paid Rs2,197 crore as pending dues, just 15 per cent of the government’s estimates.
“Tata Teleservices and Tata Teleservices (Maharashtra) have made a payment of Rs 2,197 crore to DoT towards licence fees and SUC. The companies have also submitted to the telecom department the details of calculations in support of the payment,” the Tata Group had stated.
Bharti Airtel, for its part, has assessed that its AGR dues including interest and penalties stand at just Rs13,004 crore.
While Airtel had submitted Rs10,000 crore earlier after the Supreme Court pulled up all parties to the case for failing to comply with its order to pay dues by January 23, it made another tranche of payment on Saturday including a buffer amount of Rs 5,000 crore to cover any extra demands from the DoT. However, this Rs18,003 crore, or 50.6 per cent of DoT estimates, is the company’s self-assessed worst-case payout, sources say.
“The company has paid an additional amount of Rs3,004 crore towards the full and final amounts due, over and above the ad hoc amount of Rs10,000 crore paid on February 17, 2020, on behalf of the Bharti Group of Companies... In addition to the aforesaid amounts paid based on our self-assessment, we have also deposited an additional amount of Rs 5,000 crore as an ad hoc payment (subject to subsequent refund or adjustment) to cover differences, if any, arising from the reconciliation exercise with the DoT,” Airtel said on Saturday.
While Vodafone Idea has not yet declared its final assessment, sources say the operator’s self-assessed dues is likely to be around Rs 23,000-24,000 crore.
This is again less than half of the Rs53,000-odd crore liability estimated by the telecom department.
The discrepancies in the assessments of the government and the telcos is likely to lead to more legal battles between the two.
Industry executives say that telcos will likely approach the Telecom Disputes Settlement and Appellate Tribunal if the DoT contests the self-assessed claims.
Government sources also note that with the self-assessments starting to come in, the DoT will now begin scrutinising the declarations with random test checks of the documents submitted by the companies and notices will be sent if the DoT finds lower assessment of statutory dues.
Telcos’ self-assessments
According to Bharti Airtel’s assessment, its dues stand at Rs13,004 crore, while DoT estimates it to be Rs 35,586 crore.
VIL’s assessment is said to be around Rs 23,000-24,000 crore, against DoT’s calculation of Rs 53,038 crore.