Department of Telecom slaps Airtel with Rs 5,816cr bill

New Delhi: Bharti Airtel is facing demands worth Rs 5,816.9 crore from the department of telecom (DoT), including a one-time spectrum charge of Rs 5,201.3 crore and a penalty worth Rs 350 crore for 3G intra-circle roaming (ICR) pacts as on March 31, 2014. Apart from DoT demands, the country's largest mobile operator has got contingent liabilities worth Rs 7,100.8 crore from various departments and agencies, including income tax for Rs 2,070 crore and customs duty worth Rs 605 crore.

“The contingent liabilities represent disputes with various government authorities in the respective jurisdiction where the operations are based and it is not possible for the Group to predict the timing of final outcome of these contingent liabilities,” Bharti Airtel said in a filing to the BSE. Airtel has operations in India, South Asia and Africa. It said DoT demands include those raised for “contentious matters” relating to computation of licence fees and spectrum charges, alleged short payment of license fee for FY06-07 and FY07-08 and subscriber verification norms. It has also has received show cause notices from DoT for 14 of its circles for non-fulfilment of roll out obligations and these have been replied to and there has been no further development on this matter since then.