In the case of Adjusted gross revenue, the AGR payment to the government, the country's telecom companies – Bharti Airtel, Vodafone Idea, Tata Teleservices have filed a review petition in the Supreme Court. In this petition, the telecom companies have requested the Supreme Court to reconsider their previous decision of October 24. In fact, on October 24, in the AGR payment case, the Supreme Court upheld the central government's demand.
What is the matter of AGR payment?
In fact, the central government is demanding a bailout of AGR (adjusted gross revenue) of Rs 92,000 crore from telecom companies. This amount has now exceeded 1 lakh crore with penalties and other charges. Explain that AGR is the usage charge and licensing fee charged by the telecom companies by the Department of Telecommunications (DoT) of the Ministry of Communications. The telecom companies approached the Supreme Court against this amount of government dues. But the Supreme Court had also accepted the government's demand. Along with this, the court in its order last month had asked the telecom companies to pay the dues quickly.
What is the impact of AGR on telecom companies?
If the telecom companies pay the outstanding gross revenue or AGR dues to the government, then they can suffer big losses. Recently, Airtel and Vodafone-Idea have released second quarter results. In these results, both companies have said that the total loss due to AGR is around 70 thousand crores. Only Vodafone-Idea lost Rs 50,921 crore in this quarter. It is believed to be the biggest loss in corporate history. At the same time, Airtel is in a loss of 23 thousand crores. In these circumstances, the telecom companies were expecting relief from the government.
Government did not provide Relief
The government has not given relief in the AGR case to the telecom companies facing financial crisis. Recently, Union Minister Ravi Shankar Prasad told the House that the government is currently not considering the proposal to give exemption in penalty and interest to the telecom companies in the Adjusted Gross Revenue (AGR) case. However, the government has approved the proposal to postpone the payment of spectrum installment for 2 years. Under this, companies have been given exemption from spectrum installment payments for two years 2020-21 and 2021-22. However, companies will have to pay the interest applicable on the delayed payment of spectrum.
