Top telecom panel meet tomorrow on AGR issue

NEW DELHI: The Digital Communications Commission, the highest decision making authority at the department of telecommunications (DoT), will meet on Friday to discuss relief steps in the aftermath of the adjusted gross revenue (AGR) crisis in the telecom sector, said a person aware of the matter.

“The meeting will take place at 11:30 am tomorrow (Friday),” the person said on condition of anonymity.

Last week, series of meetings had held between Vodafone Idea Ltd chairman Kumar Mangalam Birla and top government officials. Birla had met telecom secretary Anshu Prakash, after which he also discussed the issue with finance minister Nirmala Sitharaman.

The finance ministry and DoT have now started discussions on possible relief measures to prevent the sector from becoming a duopoly of Reliance Jio Infocomm Ltd and Bharti Airtel Ltd.

Several proposals are being discussed to provide immediate relief from the AGR dues such as setting up a fund, which will lend money to telcos at a concessional rate to repay their dues, and at the option of a revised payment plan, which will enable companies to defer payment of penalties and interests in future, Mint had reported on Tuesday.

Meanwhile, the DoT has also asked all operators to speed up their self-assessment of adjusted gross revenue related dues and submit documents supporting their calculation even after Bharti Airtel, Tata Teleservices and Vodafone Idea made partial payment last week.

Telecom operators are scrambling to pay dues after the Supreme Court on 14 February pulled up telcos and government officials for failing to comply with its October 2019 verdict.

The court had last year upheld the government’s definition of AGR, on which it calculates levies on telecom operators. The order dealt a massive blow to the telecom industry, which argued that AGR should only include revenue from core telecom operations. Telecom operators now have to pay dues for the past 14 years, along with interest and fines.

Vodafone Idea is the worst hit by the verdict and is on the brink of collapse. Its last-ditch efforts to earn a reprieve from the SC last week failed, after which it paid ₹3,500 crore as part payment of AGR dues.

The government is exploring the possibility of roping in third-party audit firms to reconcile dues payable by telecom operators after differences emerged in individual calculations made by the government and telcos, Mint had reported last week.

Bharti Airtel last week paid ₹10,000 crore out of its estimated liability of more than ₹35,000 crore. It plans to pay the remainder before 17 March after doing a self-assessment of the dues. Tata Teleservices paid ₹2,197 crore last week but the government pegs its dues at ₹14,000 crore.

Jio is the only telco that paid its ₹190 crore dues on 23 January.