NEW DELHI: The Department of Telecommunications (DoT) on Wednesday withdrew its demand notices asking state-owned Power Grid Corp of India Ltd to clear licence fee, including interest and penalty for the financial years 2006-07 to 2018-19. Licence fee is part of the adjusted gross revenue (AGR) levies calculated by the DoT and payable by operators.
“The provisional demand notices towards license fee including interest, penalty and interest on penalty in respect of NLD (National Long Distance) & ISP (internet service provider) licenses pertaining to FY 2006-07 to FY2018-19 have been withdrawn by the Department of Telecommunications," the power transmission company said in an exchange filing.
The move comes days before the next hearing on the AGR matter on 20 July, when Vodafone Idea Ltd, Bharti Airtel Ltd and Tata Teleservice will furnish details of financial statements and books of accounts of last 10 years to the Supreme Court.
Another state-owned company Oil India Ltd on Tuesday had said the DoT withdrew its order against the firm to pay AGR related dues worth ₹48,489 crore.
A Supreme Court (SC) bench had on 11 June asked the DoT to withdraw its demands of payments from public-sector companies such as Power Grid, GAIL India, Gujarat Narmada Valley Fertilisers & Chemicals and Oil India.
The bench had said this was a misuse of its 24 October judgement that had ordered telecom companies to pay around ₹1 trillion in AGR dues for under-reporting their revenues.
The bench had said, “Let the authority explain how our judgment has been misused. A demand of 4 lakh crore is being raised against PSUs."
Within a week, the government on 18 June withdrew its demand for 96% of around ₹4 lakh crore AGR-related dues raised against these public-sector firms.
The apex court on 24 October upheld the DoT's definition of AGR and ordered telecom firms to pay levies based on that definition, along with interest on the principal amount and penalty.
Telecom experts believe that while Bharti Airtel Ltd can manage to clear the dues, Vodafone Idea Ltd’s financial position looks uncertain. Reliance Jio Infocomm Ltd has already paid ₹195 crore to DoT, clearing its dues accounted till 31 January, 2020. Jio’s dues were the lowest among all telcos as it was launched in September 2016.
After payment of ₹25,902 crore by the operators, telecom companies' dues for the 13-year period ending March 2017 stood at ₹1.69 lakh crores. The DoT is yet to calculate dues for the period ending March 2019. The dues also include those of telecom companies that shut operations.
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