Bharti Airtel paid Rs 10,000 crore to the government on Monday as a part of AGR dues. The company has said in a statement that it has paid a portion of the outstanding AGR, ie Rs 100 billion, to the Department of Telecommunications. Significantly, Bharti Airtel owes AGR payment of Rs 35,000 crore. Telecom companies owe AGR payments of 1.47 lakh crore to the government. No telecom companies, except Reliance Jio, had paid the AGR dues, despite the Supreme Court's order to pay arrears by 23 January 2020. After this, the Supreme Court on Friday slammed the telecom companies.
The court had asked the companies to pay the full amount of the dues by March 17 and also contempt action for defying the court. After this, Bharti Airtel has paid a part of its outstanding AGR to DoT. As per the calculations of the Department of Telecommunications, Bharti Airtel has to pay a total of Rs 35,586 crore and Vodafone Idea has to pay Rs 50,000 crore.
The shares of Bharti Airtel were trading down 0.04 percent at Rs 564.80 on the NSE following the news of partial payment of the dues of AGR. Let us tell you that earlier the company had written a letter to the Department of Telecommunications saying that it would pay Rs 10,000 crore of the outstanding AGR by February 20. The company had sought time till March 17 to pay the remaining amount.
