New Delhi: A week before Supreme Court-mandated deadline for payment of past dues ends, Bharti Airtel chairman Sunil Mittal said that the company has paid Rs 13,000 crore to the government to clear all its dues as per its self-assessment.
The comment by Mittal, who also met Telecom Secretary Anshu Prakash on Wednesday, assumes significance as the government, on 4 March, had asked Bharti Airtel, Vodafone Idea and other telecom companies to pay the remaining adjusted gross revenue (AGR) dues as per the Supreme Court order without further delay.
The telecom department had, at that time, written to all telcos asking them to pay balance dues ‘without delay’ and submit detailed bifurcation of payments (explanation of self-assessed amounts), which it said were necessary for proper reconciliation of legitimate AGR dues.
Emerging from the meeting with Telecom Secretary, Mittal, to a specific question, said, ”They had said pay full … we have paid full dues.”
He was responding to a question on Telecom Department’s recent notice to companies to pay their remaining AGR dues.
”We have paid our full dues. It is in our letter … which is about Rs 13,000 crore, and Rs 5,000 crore which is extra,” Mittal said.
On Airtel’s payment being lesser than the government-calculated dues of Rs 35,000 crore, Mittal said, ”There is no versus…They asked us to self-assess, we have self-assessed and paid.”
The company has made payment in compliance with Telecom Department’s instructions for self assessment, he said adding that the Supreme Court had not mentioned specific amounts.
It is pertinent to mention here that Bharti Airtel has paid Rs 13,004 crore to the government in two installments.
It had also deposited an additional Rs 5,000 crore ‘as an ad-hoc payment (subject to subsequent refund/adjustment) to cover differences, if any, arising from the reconciliation exercise with the DoT.
The total payout by Bharti Airtel, however, is half of Rs 35,586.01 crore liability estimated by the DoT.