Editorial – July 2021

Why is the DoT so averse to securitize AGR dues owed to it by telecom operators? The payback is a long 10-year period. So wasn’t this the most logical step to take, as this even ordained by the license conditions as also reiterated by the apex court order of September 1, 2020 that DoT must securitize arrears through bank guarantees to protect against default.

And yet, nearly two years after the Supreme court verdict (October 24, 2019) on AGR matter which goes in DoT’s favour, the department has done precious little to secure government’s revenue interest and done everything to whittle down the top court’s judgement to favour private operators. The amount involved is massive. Out of a total Rs 169,049 crore AGR arrears as on FY 2016-17, dues of the three telcos – Bharti Airtel, Vodafone Idea, and Tatas – are to the tune of Rs 119,032 crore. Beyond this timeframe revenue calculations have not been stated by DoT.

We have seen how the operators have played their dilatory tactics. Bharti Airtel and Vodafone Idea filed a review petition against the SC decision, this was dismissed on January 16, 2020. They then filed a curative petition, which too was dismissed in February 2020 with contempt notices. In an act of self-sabotage, DoT issued a ‘no-coercion order’ to its field units on revenue collection when the three-month pay up timeframe was to end on January 23, 2020. It did not just stop here, it stretched AGR to irrational limits and dragged non-telecom PSUs in the revenue net, hoping any concessions extended to them would be applicable to telecom operators also. Nothing worked. DoT was rapped with reprimands and its pleas junked. Almost acting as a cohort of the Airtel & Vodafone-Idea, DoT thereafter allowed these operators self-assessment of AGR dues. This too was thrown out of the court in a March 18, 2020 order. The self-assessment / arithmetical errors drama was again replayed by the operators in its pleas; on July 23, 2021, a new three-judge bench turned these down.

In the face of all this, DoT won’t securitise nor claim dues. And the fallout is Vodafone-Idea’s honcho, the super-rich Kumarmangalam Birla regularly brandishes exit threats, if asked to pay the AGR amounts. DoT’s conduct post-SC verdict has the tell-tale signs of a revenue loss scam in the making, something that will be hard for the CAG and the public interest minded bodies of the country to ignore.