The operators have paid the entire upfront payment of about Rs 288.72 billion to the government for the spectrum that they acquired in the last round of spectrum auction held in March 2015.
For the operators, April 9, 2015 was the last day for making upfront payments for the spectrum acquired by them. It is learnt that Tata Teleservices Limited and Reliance Communications deposited the amount on April 8, 2015. Meanwhile other operators including Bharti Airtel, Reliance Jio Infocomm (RJIL), Vodafone India and Idea Cellular had paid about Rs 108.08 billion towards upfront payments till March 31, 2015, helping the government meet its fiscal deficit target of 4.1 per cent for 2014-15.
According to the Department of Telecommunications, the upfront payment due from Idea Cellular was Rs 77.72 billion, followed by Bharti Airtel (Rs 78.32 billion); Vodafone India (Rs 68.17 billion); RJIL (Rs 25.91 billion); TTSL (Rs 20.13 billion); RCOM (Rs 11.04 billion) and Aircel (Rs 7.42 billion).
The 19-day spectrum auction, which concluded on March 25, 2015, fetched the government cumulative bids worth Rs 1,098.74 billion from seven operators.
