Bharti Airtel will pay $1 billion to partially pay off its 2016 spectrum costs
Bharti Airtel has made an early payment of 84.65 billion rupees ($1.01 billion) to the Indian government, partially paying outstanding spectrum fees from a 2016 auction, the telecom company announced Monday.
This is the first payment made by the country’s second-largest telecom operator for the phone spectrum it acquired for $2.13 billion (about Rs. 17,852 crore) in 2016. Telephone spectrums are rights to airwaves purchased for a specific period of time.
Indian telecom operators have collected significant amounts of money from the government for spectrum fees, after years of high-stakes auctions and competitive bidding for airwave rights.
Airtel, which did not disclose how many of its 2016 contributions remain outstanding after payment, did not immediately respond to a Reuters request for comment.
The company fully prepaid its spectrum fees for 2012 and 2015 during the first quarter of the current fiscal year.
Airtel’s latest payment comes weeks after India’s Supreme Court rejected a request from telecom companies for the dues they owed the government.
According to an ICRA estimate, Airtel and its struggling rival Vodafone Idea owe around $12 billion (roughly Rs. 1,00,577 crore) in outstanding dues, including spectrum charges and licensing fees, to the government.
Monday’s payment to the government’s telecom department carried an interest rate of 9.3 percent, Airtel said.
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