The telecom department’s aim to raise ₹60,000 crore by March to meet its revised ₹1.4-trillion receipt target for FY26 could weigh on chances of relief for Bharti Airtel on its upcoming dues on account of adjusted gross revenue (AGR), telecom analysts say.
In the revised estimates for this fiscal, detailed in the Union budget for FY27 on Sunday, the government pegged receipts from communications services at ₹1.4 trillion for FY26, up 71% from the earlier projections of ₹82,443 crore.
Telecom analysts question where this extra ₹60,000 crore is going to come from for the communications ministry, as it has already shown an earning of about ₹80,000 crore as of December end from sources such as licence fee, spectrum use charges and spectrum auction money from private telecom operators.
“The additional receipts would come from BSNL’s spectrum payment, AGR dues expected from Bharti Airtel and the quarterly licence fee receipts for FY26,” an official said on the condition of anonymity. For FY27, the telecom receipts from communications services are pegged at ₹1.17 trillion on expectation of receipts from potential spectrum auctions and statutory dues.
Last August, state-owned Bharat Sanchar Nigam Ltd (BSNL) said it had paid about ₹52,298 crore for spectrum allotment on 2 April, 2025. The payment is sort of a non-cash receipt for the telecom department, as it first infuses equity into the state-owned telecom operator and later BSNL issues equity shares in the name of the President of India, shown as receipts by the government.
Queries emailed to the department of telecommunications (DoT) and Bharti Airtel did not elicit any response until press time.
“Reaching around ₹60,000 crore of additional telecom receipts in the last quarter looks challenging. It is not clear what the underlying source of this money is,” said Parag Kar, an independent telecom analyst. “If the government is expecting a significant part of this from BSNL-linked spectrum entries, which are non-cash in nature, the budget should have reflected a matching increase in BSNL capex support. In fact, BSNL capex has been reduced significantly in the revised estimates.”
He said the hiked receipt estimate for FY26 also signals that the government is not factoring in any relief for Bharti Airtel on its upcoming AGR instalments in March, estimated at about ₹10,000 crore.
Bharti Airtel has approached the department, seeking a recalculation of the AGR dues on the lines of the respite given to Vodafone Idea (Vi).
“From our own standpoint, we are hoping and have written to the government that AGR was our issue as well and we hope we get attention from the government,” Bharti Enterprises founder and chairman Sunil Bharti Mittal had told CNBC-TV18 on the sidelines of the World Economic Forum at Davos last month.
The Union cabinet had last month frozen Vodafone Idea’s AGR dues at ₹87,695 crore as of 31 December 2025, and approved a payment plan allowing the company to clear these dues between FY32 and FY41. Last week, the department began reassessing its AGR dues for FY07-FY19. The government owns a 49% stake in Vi.
The government is, however, of the view that any other telecom operator looking for AGR relief has to come through the court as the Supreme Court had given relief on the dues only to Vodafone Idea.
“There are a lot of accounting readjustments that happen between telecom public sector companies and DoT. For example, the government provides funding support to BSNL and the state-owned operator issues equity in lieu of that. It is shown as receipts by the government," said Satya N. Gupta, former principal advisor at the Telecom Regulatory Authority of India (Trai). "In the last quarter, efforts are made by DoT to collect more receipts. Some big-ticket items such as asset monetization could also play a role there."
Interestingly, the government has also reduced the expenditure for the communications ministry at ₹53,398 crore in FY26, down 34% from the earlier projections of ₹81,005 crore. The revised budget estimate for FY26 pegs BSNL's capital expenditure at ₹6,885 crore from the earlier projection of ₹33,758 crore.
For the next fiscal year, the communications ministry's net expenditure has been kept at ₹73,991 crore. Of this, BSNL has been allocated ₹28,473 crore. “The provision is made for capital infusion for technology upgradation and restructuring in BSNL,” the government said in the budget document.