As per the DoT, the company owes around Rs 35,586 crore in statutory dues, including licence fee and spectrum usage charge.
Bharti Airtel has paid ₹10,000 crore to the Department of Telecommunications (DoT) as a part of its adjusted gross revenue (AGR) dues, the company said in a statement.
The paid amount is just a part of Airtel's total AGR dues. As per the DoT, the company owes around Rs 35,586 crore in statutory dues, including licence fee and spectrum usage charge. The firm has said that it will make the rest of the payment before 17 March as it needs time to complete the exercise of calculating dues across 22 circles.
"Rs 10,000 crore have been paid on behalf of Bharti Airtel, Bharti Hexacom, and Telenor," the Sunil Mittal-led company said in a statement.
As much as Rs 9,500 crore has been paid on behalf of Bharti Airtel (including Telenor India which merged with the company), and another Rs 500 crore for Bharti Hexacom.
"We are in the process of completing the self assessment exercise expeditiously and will duly make the balance payment upon completion of the same, before the next date of hearing in the SC," the statement further read.
After facing the ire of the Supreme Court for putting on hold the recovery of dues from telecom companies, the telecom department on February 14 began issuing orders asking firms such as Bharti Airtel and Vodafone Idea to clear past dues immediately.
The DoT swung into action and started issuing circle or zone-wise demand notices to firms, asking telcos cough up their liabilities immediately or face action in line with licence terms without any further notice.
In total, 15 entities owe the government Rs 1.47 lakh crore, including Rs 92,642 crore in unpaid licence fee and Rs 55,054 crore in outstanding spectrum usage charges.
These dues arose after the Supreme Court, in October last year, had upheld the government's position on including revenue from non-core businesses in calculating the annual Adjusted Gross Revenue (AGR) of telecom companies, a share of which is paid as licence and spectrum fee to the exchequer.
(With PTI inputs)
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