Airtel, Vodafone, Idea make part payment; DoT mulls encashing bank guarantees

After a Supreme Court rap for missing payment deadline, top telecom firms Bharti Airtel, Vodafone Idea and Tata Teleservices on Monday scrambled to pay a part of outstanding dues even as apex court refused to stop government from taking coercive action for any furr delay in clearing full dues.

While Airtel paid Rs 10,000 crore, Vodafone Idea Ltd put in Rs 2,500 crore and promised to pay ar Rs 1,000 crore before end of week. Tata Teleservices Ltd paid Rs 2,197 crore, entire outstanding it believes to have arisen after October 24 ruling of apex court for calculating dues after adding n-telecom revenues.

Department of Telecommunications (DoT), which was last week rapped on knuckles for ordering coercive action even after telcos missed January 23 payment deadline set by Supreme Court, is mulling option of encashing bank guarantees given by firms when y got telecom licences, sources said.

Encashing of bank guarantees may sound death knell for companies such as Vodafone Idea Ltd which has been struggling to garner dues. In a related development, telecom companies started disputing DoT estimate of due amount and indicated y will pay as per ir 'self-assessment'.

telecom department officials will meet on Tuesday to discuss wher or t bank guarantees should be encashed, as ne of telcos have paid full payment. Sources said that option of encashment of bank guarantees is being considered and that "thing is off table". A decision on matter may be taken on Tuesday, source added.

Separately, Reserve Bank of India (RBI) Goverr Shaktikanta Das in an interview to PTI said that central bank is "very closely monitoring" fallout of crisis on lenders. In Supreme Court, senior advocate Mukul Rohatgi, appearing on behalf of Vodafone Idea, urged for coercive action after initial payment of Rs 2,500 crore is made by end of day and ar Rs 1,000 crore by Friday. apex court rejected plea, giving room to DoT to take coercive action including encashment of bank guarantees.

A financial bank guarantee is equal to two quarters of licence fee and or dues. This amount could be in range of Rs 5,000 crore for Airtel and Vodafone Idea. Meanwhile, Oil Minister Dharmendra Pradhan on Monday said he believes n-telecom PSUs are t covered by Supreme Court order that asked telecom licence holders to pay statutory dues after including n-telecom revenues.

Following October 24 Supreme Court ruling that n-telecom revenues of telecom firms such as Bharti Airtel and Vodafone Idea should be included for considering payments of government dues, telecom department sought Rs 1.83 lakh crore from gas utility GAIL India Ltd, about Rs 48,500 crore from OIL, Rs 21,953.65 crore from Power Grid Corp and Rs 15,020 crore from Gujarat Narmada Valley Fertilizers & Chemicals Ltd. government's demand from such companies was many times more than ir net worth.

" DoT has served tice to government oil companies due to some communication gap. We have placed our side after doing all legal consultations," Pradhan said adding telecom was t a core business for se PSUs.

Supreme Court last week rejected a plea by mobile carriers such as Bharti Airtel and Vodafone Idea Ltd for extension in payment schedule and asked m to deposit an estimated Rs 1.47 lakh crore in past dues for spectrum and licences. It threatened to initiate contempt proceedings against top executives of se firms for n-payment.

Some telecom firms are already struggling with mounting losses and debt and additional liability has raised concerns of m defaulting on existing loans. Of estimated dues that include interest and penalty for late payments, Airtel and Vodafone Idea owe about 60 per cent.

While Airtel on Monday paid Rs 10,000 crore out of Rs 35,586 crore dues that DoT thinks company owes to government, Vodafone Idea paid Rs 2,500 crore and promised to pay ar Rs 1,000 crore by Friday to clear a part of DoT estimated dues of Rs 53,000 crore. Airtel said it will clear remaining dues before next date of hearing on March 17 but Vodafone Idea has so far t provided a clear deadline for making furr payments.

"Tata Teleservices Ltd and Tata Teleservices (Maharashtra) Ltd have made a payment of Rs 2,197 crore to DoT towards license fee and spectrum us charges," company said in a statement.

payment is to settle all its AGR outstanding.

"TTSL and TTML have also submitted to DoT details of calculations in support of payment," it said.

In a regulatory filing, Bharti Airtel said it has paid "an amount of Rs 10,000 crore to DoT" which includes an amount on behalf of Teler India ( firm which merged with company) and Rs 500 crore on behalf of Bharti Hexacom Limited, a subsidiary.

" company is in a process of completing self-assessment exercise expeditiously and will make balance payment upon completion of same, before next date of hearing in Supreme Court," it added.

In a separate statement, Vodafone Idea Ltd said its authorised company to pay Rs 2,500 crore immediately and ar Rs 1,000 crore before end of week.

" board will take furr stock of situation to see how furr additional payments can be made," company said in a regulatory filing.