Vodafone Idea (Vi) and Bharti Airtel, the two private telecom operators in India are likely to engage in a fresh adjusted gross revenue (AGR) dues battle with the telecom department. The Department of Telecommunications (DoT) has raised an additional demand for AGR dues until FY19. Much recently, it was reported by PTI that Vodafone Idea has moved to the Supreme Court (SC) for contesting the addititional AGR demand by the DoT to the tune of Rs 9,450 crore.
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Bharti Airtel is also expected to join the list here and contest the decision by DoT. Earlier, the SC had said that it won't entertain anymore recalculation requests by the telcos. According to an ET report, a DoT official said that this is a very fair request and this is not a re-assesment of the dues.
According to the report, the DoT official said, "The demand notices were valid and sent for certain gaps, which were not calculated at the time of the Supreme Court (SC) judgement and an affidavit regarding the same was duly filed in the apex court by the DoT."
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This amount was not yet accounted for when the decision from the SC was given. "The additional amount was for certain circles, where the accounting was under process at the time of the judgement," the official added. The report also added that the additional dues were paid by Jio as it was a miniscule amount for the company. But for Bharti Airtel and Vodafone Idea, this is not a miniscule amount. Vi is already battling through a debt mountain, and this would make things matter worse. The share price of Vodafone Idea is Rs 7.57, up 2.16% from the previous closing.
