Vodafone Idea has paid about Rs 1,367 crore to the government as licence fee and spectrum usage charges for the March 2020 quarter.
Officials said the department of telecom (DoT) has received the payment made by Vodafone Idea this week and added that the other operators had already submitted their dues.
Reliance Jio and Bharti Airtel had already made their stipulated payments of about Rs 1,600 crore and Rs 1,440 crore, respectively, towards licence fee and spectrum charges for the recently-concluded quarter.
A Vodafone Idea spokesperson declined to comment on the latest payment.
Industry body Cellular Operators’ Association of India (COAI) had last month approached the DoT seeking extended timelime for telcos to make the statutory fourth quarter payments, which otherwise fell due on March 25.
Citing the “unprecedented circumstances” in the wake of coronavirus pandemic, the COAI had requested that the compliance date be extended to April 30, 2020 without any interest payment. The association had urged the DoT for necessary instructions and clarifications to field offices in this regard.
Sources, however, said that Vodafone Idea made the payment as no extension in timeline was granted.
The telecom industry is saddled with adjusted gross revenue (AGR) liabilities (past statutory dues) of up to Rs 1.69 lakh crore for 16 entities.
The self-assessments of past dues estimated by Bharti Airtel, Vodafone Idea and Tata Group were a whopping Rs 82,300 crore, short of what the telecom department had calculated.
