Airtel, Vodafone, Idea, RCom, Aircel & SSTL Understated Revenues by More Than Rs 61,000 Crore: CAG

The Comptroller and Auditor General of India (CAG) on Friday said that six private telecom operators including Bharti Airtel, Vodafone, and Idea Cellular understated revenues by more than Rs 61,000 crore over five years, which resulted in short payment of nearly Rs 7,700 crore in statutory dues to the government.

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The CAG, in its report tabled in Parliament, said another Rs 4,531.62 crore was due from these operators as interest on the short paid revenue share. It said that Airtel, Vodafone, Idea, RCom and Aircel has understated revenues during 2010-11 to 2014-15 period through accounting adjustments for commission or discount paid to their distributors, promotional schemes like free talk time and discounts to post-paid subscribers and on roaming services.

The CAG said that these private telecom operators also understated revenue by “netting of income from infrastructure sharing and non-inclusion of forex gains, interest income, and sale of an investment.”

In its report, the CAG said that the Sunil Mittal-led Airtel owes the government Rs 2,602.24 crore in license fee and spectrum usage charge (SUC) and Rs 1,245.91 crore in interest for 2010-11 to 2014-15. Similarly, Vodafone owes Rs 3,331.79 crore including Rs 1,178.84 crore in interest. It said that Idea Cellular owes Rs 1,136.29 crore in license fee and spectrum usage charge (SUC) and Rs 657.88 crore in interest. RCom, Aircel, and SSTL owe Rs 1,911.17 crore, Rs 1,226.65 crore and Rs 116.71 crore, respectively.

According to norms, telecom service providers are required to share a percentage of their Adjusted Gross Revenue (AGR) with the government as annual License Fee (LF), besides paying Spectrum Usage Charges (SUC) for the use of radio frequency spectrum allotted to them.