Reliance Jio Pays AGR Dues While Vodafone Idea and Bharti Airtel Wait for Relief

While the other telecom companies like Vodafone Idea and Bharti Airtel struggle to pay the dues for the Adjusted Gross Revenue (AGR) to the Department of Telecommunications (DoT), the Mukesh Ambani led telecom operator, Reliance Jio, has become the only telecom company to have successfully paid off dues in the industry to the DoT before the January 23 deadline. As per an ET report on the matter, Reliance Jio has paid Rs 195 crore to the DoT. On the other hand, Bharti Airtel is waiting on the decision of the Supreme Court on its modification plea for which it had filed for in the apex court. The decision is to come next week. In the meantime, a wing inside the DoT has directed the department not to take any “coercive” action on the telecom companies who have missed their AGR dues deadline. This means that Vodafone Idea and Bharti Airtel who have not paid their dues will not get a show-cause notice from the government asking them to explain reasons for the default.

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Non-Telecom Companies Also Affected

The ripple of the AGR decision passed by the Supreme Court on October 24 has passed on to other industries as well. Other non-telecom companies such as oil corporations, railways and others have also been affected and have been slapped with massive dues. As such, Oil minister, Dharmendra Pradhan has expressed his views hoping that the decision would not affect these companies. The dues on the shoulders of the non-telecom companies in the AGR matter are well over Rs 3 lakh crore. Pradhan remarked about this, “We are discussing the matter with the Department of Telecommunications (DoT),” Pradhan said Thursday. He said the core business of public sector units (PSUs) such as GAIL, Oil India and Power Grid Corp of India Ltd (PGCIL) was not telecom and the current issue was probably a result of some “communication gap.”