Bharti Airtel has made an early cost of 84.65 billion rupees ($1.01 billion) to the Indian authorities, partially settling its excellent spectrum charges from a 2016 public sale, the telecom provider introduced on Monday.
That is the primary cost the nation’s second-largest telecom operator is making for the cellphone spectrum it acquired for $2.13 billion (roughly Rs. 17,852 crore) in 2016. Telephone spectrums are rights over airwaves purchased for a selected time.
Indian telecom operators have gathered important dues to the federal government over spectrum charges, following years of high-stakes auctions and aggressive bidding for airwave rights.
Airtel, which didn’t disclose how a lot of the 2016 dues are pending after the cost, didn’t instantly reply to a Reuters request for remark.
It has absolutely pay as you go its 2012 and 2015 spectrum charges throughout the first quarter of the present monetary yr.
Airtel’s newest cost comes weeks after India’s prime court docket rejected a request by telecom companies to recalculate the dues they owed the federal government.
As per an ICRA estimate, Airtel and its struggling rival Vodafone Concept owe roughly $12 billion (roughly Rs. 1,00,577 crore) in previous dues, together with spectrum costs and licensing charges to the federal government.
Monday’s cost to the federal government’s telecom division had an rate of interest of 9.three p.c, Airtel stated.
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