Vi pays up licence fee dues for Q1
- ByAyushi Ray | August 20, 2021
Vodafone India, Vi pays up licence fee dues for Q1. After a tumultuous time, this might be a hope for its investors that the company is not drowning in debts and still has the capacity to get back, if the government comes out with a rescue package. No official number was mentioned by the company, but a close source has revealed that the entire outstanding amount for the first quarter has been cleared by the company. The amount is quite small, when compared to its total dues of ₹22,500 crore that needs to be settled between December and April to repay a mix of regular debt to lenders, AGR (adjusted gross revenue) and spectrum dues, analysts said that the development does add to the company’s survival hopes. Vodafone Idea has a total liability of ₹1.92 lakh crore. Out of this, it owes ₹58,000 crore to the government as AGR dues. The rest of the amount includes spectrum-related dues and bank loans.
In August, Kumar Mangalam Birla stepped down as the chairman of Vodafone Idea, a post he had held since Idea Cellular‘s merger with Vodafone India in 2018. Birla’s stepping down was widely viewed as an attempt to distance himself from the company. In a letter to the cabinet secretary in June, Birla offered to hand over Aditya Birla group’s stake in the telco to the government or a government-approved entity, citing the company’s dire financial situation, which he warned made the company’s collapse imminent in the absence of a bailout. In July, the Supreme Court dismissed the telecom operator’s plea to allow payment of self-assessed AGR dues that are way lower than that demanded by the telecom department. With the judgement going against it, the company’s fundraising plans came to a grinding halt.
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