Recently, Bharti Airtel, Vodafone-Idea and Tata Teleservices have filed a review petition on the Supreme Court's decision on Adjusted Gross Revenue (AGR) on 24 October 2019, where the Supreme Court ruled on 24 October that the license. To calculate the payment of spectrum fees, non-telecom revenue should also be included in the AGR. The decision increased the liability of telecom companies to the government. This is the reason that Bharti Airtel and Vodafone-Idea have announced to increase tariffs since December. After these two, Reliance Jio also announced to increase the mobile tariff from next month.

In view of the information received, the cabinet approved the proposal to postpone the payment of spectrum instalment for two years while giving relief to the telecom companies facing financial crisis. Giving information about the decision, Finance Minister Nirmala Sitharaman said, Telecom companies have been exempted from spectrum instalment payments for two years 2020-21 and 2021-22. According to sources, the decision of the government will give a relief of Rs 42,000 crore to telecom company Bharti Airtel, Vodafone Idea and Reliance Jio.

There could have been an increase in the liability: It is believed that this AGR related liability could have increased. The brokerage firm has said that the company has estimated the AGR principal amount to be Rs 11,100 crore based on the notice received from the telecom department. At the same time, the company has estimated itself for the last 2-3 years. According to brokerage firm Credit Suisse, Vodafone Idea's AGR related liability could be Rs 54,200 crore. In such a situation, the telecom company will have to make an additional provision of Rs 10,100 crore for AGR. The Supreme Court has ordered the company to pay this amount within three months.

Spectrum payments will not reduce by increasing tariffs: Based on the information received, rating agency Fitch on Friday said that telecom companies are not expected to get relief for two years in spectrum payments and increase the tariff of companies also Are. The agency said that Reliance Jio is not affected by the decision of the Supreme Court in the Adjusted Gross Revenue (AGR) case, hence its market share is expected to increase continuously. It also said that its outlook for the telecom sector in 2020 is negative, as the financial risk is increasing due to the high amount of AGR outstanding.

Fitch estimates that increasing the tariff by companies and getting two years time to pay spectrum fees from the government is positive for the telecom sector, but it is not enough to mitigate the impact of the Supreme Court ruling. Now telecom companies are considering filing a review petition regarding the decision of the court. Not only this, they are also trying to take advantage of other types of discounts from the government.

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