Vodafone Idea pegs dues less than half of DoT estimate

New Delhi: Beleaguered Vodafone Idea Ltd on Friday put its total dues to the government following a Supreme Court order at Rs 21,533 crore -- less than half of what the Department of Telecommunications (DoT) has estimated.

On a day when Vodafone Group CEO Nick Read met top ministers, including Finance Minister Nirmala Sitharaman and Telecom Minister Ravi Shankar Prasad, the UK telecom giant's India joint venture, Vodafone Idea Ltd in a statement said it has already paid Rs 3,500 crore out of the "self-assessed" liability of Rs 21,533 crore.

The DoT, following the Supreme Court ruling in October last year which said that all kinds of income generated by telecom companies will be considered for calculating government dues, had estimated Vodafone Idea's liabilities at over Rs 53,000 crore. On March 4, Minister of State for Communications & IT Sanjay Dhotre, in a written reply to a question in the Lok Sabha, stated that Idea Cellular owed the government Rs 15,230.37 crore and Vodafone Group of Companies another Rs 37,808.23 crore.

Out of the total Rs 53,038.6 crore due from Vodafone Idea, a sum of Rs 3,500 crore has been received, he had said. On Friday, the company, which was formed following the merger of Idea and Vodafone, in a statement said it has "filed its self-assessment of the AGR liabilities with the Department of Telecommunications.

The self-assessment discloses the company's AGR liabilities to aggregate Rs 21,533 crores including a principal amount of Rs 6,854 crores for the period from FY 2006-07 to FY 2018-19 and interest up to February 2020."

"The company has already paid a sum of Rs 2,500 crores on February 17, 2020, and a further sum of Rs 1,000 crores on February 20, 2020, towards this liability," it added. On a similar self-assessment pattern, Bharti Airtel paid Rs 13,004 crore to the government in two installments.