Bharti Airtel (Airtel) on Thursday said that it has prepaid ₹3,626 crore to the Department of Telecom (government), clearing all its liabilities for the spectrum it had acquired in 2016.
“With this, Airtel has now prepaid all its spectrum dues that had interest costs higher than 8.65 per cent. Airtel has prepaid a total of ₹28,320 crore of spectrum liabilities in this calendar year,” the company said.
This is the second prepayment that the company has made in the current financial year after June, when it prepaid all its deferred liabilities for spectrum acquired in the 2012 and 2015 auctions, amounting to ₹7,904 crore, where the interest rates were higher at 9.75 per cent and 10 per cent respectively.
Before that, the Sunil Mittal-promoted telecom operator had made a prepayment of ₹8,325 crore to the government, clearing part of its deferred liabilities for the spectrum acquired in the 2015 auctions.
The company acquired 111.6 MHz of spectrum from the 2015 auctions for R₹29,130.20 crore, with an upfront payment of ₹7,832.58 crore, as per the auction rules at that time.
Airtel successfully renewed spectrum expiring in 2024, along with additional spectrum purchased from the auctions earlier this year, to bolster its mid-band holding across the key circles.
The company acquired a 97 MHz spectrum by winning back spectrum that was expiring in the current year and additionally purchased a spectrum to enhance its mid-band spectrum holding across select circles. It spent a total of Rs.6,856.76 crore to secure the said quantum of spectrum.
Out of the above, Bharti Hexacom has acquired 15 MHz with an outlay of ₹1,001 crore.
