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Telecom operators have raised the issue of adjusted gross revenue (AGR) dues and rectification of calculation errors during their meeting with communications minister Jyotiraditya Scindia on Tuesday, people aware of the details told ET.
Apart from that, the telcos urged Scindia to continue with the existing contractual agreement between government and telcos for grant of licenses.
“The telcos said licenses can be converted into authorisation, but the agreement should continue, so as to provide regulatory certainty,” said an official on condition of anonymity.
During the meeting, the operators also reiterated their demand to bring over-the-top (OTT) communication players under the regulatory fold.
This is the third such meeting between telecom top bosses and Scindia in the last few months. The minister also took an update on the issues which were discussed in the previous meetings. The meeting was attended by Reliance Jio chairman Akash Ambani and managing director Pankaj Pawar, Vice Chairman of Bharti Enterprises Rajan Mittal and Vodafone Idea MD Akshaya Moondra, among others.
“The issue (recompute of AGR dues) was raised by Vodafone Idea and all other operators supported it,” said another official. The minister is believed to have assured the telcos that the matter would be examined by the Department of Telecommunications (DoT).
Monday, Scindia had said that DoT was examining the repercussions of the Supreme Court’s rejection of the curative petitions of Vodafone Idea and Bharti Airtel on recomputing AGR dues. Any relief on AGR dues will provide a lifeline to Vodafone Idea while Bharti Airtel will also benefit from it. Reliance Jio has no historical AGR dues and is unaffected by the matter, but the telco is supportive of any resolution on the issue.
After the latest SC order, Vodafone Idea is now left facing over Rs70,000 crore in AGR dues, payable instalments starting FY26, raising fears that the dues could derail its attempts to invest in expanding in their network and stem subscriber losses, say analysts. Financially stronger Airtel now also faces some Rs44,000 crore in AGR dues.
The operators also pressed their demand to bring OTT players under some sort of regulatory control as a majority of traffic, including commercial traffic which is at the heart of spam and phishing attempts, has shifted to such players.
Apart from the meeting with telecom heads, Scindia also undertook another meeting with original equipment manufacturers. The meetings are part of the six advisory committees that were formed earlier by the DoT.
The six committees include representation from different stakeholders including telecom firms, vendors, R&D, infrastructure providers, satellite players, electronics ecosystem etc that form the backbone of the Indian communication sector.
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