The government has detached GAIL India, Oil India and other public sector undertakings (PSUs) from Supreme Court’s (SC) order on adjusted gross revenue (AGR) dues.
Further, the government has also directed them to seek relief from an appropriate forum.
Following the SC’s October order, the Department of Telecommunications (DoT) had sought a cumulative Rs 2.7 trillion from GAIL and other non-telecom PSUs. However, the demand was challenged by state-owned firms.
As per a recent announcement made by minister of state for communications Sanjay Dhotre in the Lok Sabha, PSUs such as GAIL, Oil India, etc represented to DoT that the AGR judgment is not applicable on them and therefore they do not owe any dues to the DoT.
The DoT had sought Rs 1.83 trillion from GAIL and Rs 484.89 billion from OIL India by including their revenues from oil and gas business in calculating dues for leasing out surplus bandwidth capacity to third parties. Further, Power Grid Corporation of India Limited and Gujarat Narmada Valley Fertilizers & Chemicals Limited were asked to pay Rs 219.53 billion and Rs 150.19 billion, respectively. RailTel and Delhi Metro too faced similar demands.
